Seasonal Absence Syndrome, how seriously do we take it, but, it defines a common problem affecting so many businesses at substantial cost to bottom line, service and delivery. To put it simple terms - whether it’s the hottest day of the year or the first fall of snow, absence can increase significantly in relation to the weather.
How do you encourage staff not to take days off, especially when you already pay them to come to work? Do you adopt a ‘Carrot’ approach and reward for good attendance or a ’stick’ approach and refuse to pay sick pay for the first few days and risk penalising those that are genuinely ill? Or both?
Summer Absenteeism
The cost of this has a considerable effect on efficiency, profitability and team morale, but what’s the best way to tackle it and should you? What more can an employer do? Do you positively acknowledge your staff for the days they come to work or do you take a disciplinary approach. Neither option is perfect and the approach needs to be balanced to avoid being discriminatory and generating bitterness.
The ‘Carrot’
A well known mail delivery service introduced a ‘carrot’ approach to tackling absenteeism rates by rewarding employees who didn’t take any sick days in a given period. Although they saw an 11% increase in attendance this approach could have legal implications. Staff are rewarded for not taking days off, but what if an event was unavoidable such as, a funeral, religious holiday or activity, public duty or disability? Could a claim of discrimination be made for someone upholding a mandatory duty and losing out on the reward given to others.
The ‘Stick’
On the other hand two large super market chains took a ’stick’ approach. They no longer pay sick pay for the first 3 days of leave, although one witnessed a drop of 5% in absenteeism rates, it also created demotivation as staff felt unable to take a day off for genuine ill health. The implications of the ’stick’ mean that staff often come to work when they should, for their own health and the health of their colleagues, be at home. This is especially true during the current times with a swine flu epidemic. Those that are unwell should be actively encouraged to stay at home to prevent widespread infection rather than being forced, by the sick-leave policy, to come to work.
A Balanced Approach
Neither Carrot nor Stick will, in isolation, deliver the desired result and a balanced approach is key. Have in place a disciplinary procedure for unauthorised absences and there are tools, such as the Bradford Factor, that can help you identify and monitor high-risk individuals. However it is important to encourage good attendance and one method is to provide incentivisation where an unconscious by-product of the incentive campaign is a reward for good attendance. This subtle approach to rewarding attendance is an excellent compromise providing as it does gentle and covert promotion of good attendance while avoiding many of the political and occupational difficulties that often accompany openly rewarding basic attendance.
Incentive schemes that reward achievement and improve performance can also deliver, as secondary benefits, behavioural and cultural improvements such as regular attendance etc. By having multiple targets such schemes can be an excellent tool with which to tackle unscheduled absence. Costs are low and, when compared with productivity, offer a high return on investment.
Tags: absence, absence management, absence monitoring, absence recording, absence reporting, Absenteeism, absenteeism management, absenteeism policy, absenteeism questionnaire, absenteeism rate, absenteeism rates, absenteeism statistics, absenteeism survey, cost of sickness absence, definition absenteeism, definition of absenteeism, employee absence, employee absenteeism, how to reduce absenteeism, incentivisation, labour absenteeism, long term absence, long term absenteeism, long term sick, long term sickness, long term sickness absence, managing absence, managing absenteeism, managing sickness, managing sickness absence, managing staff absence, reduce absenteeism, reducing absenteeism, reward schemes, seasonal average, seasonal climate, seasonal effect, seasonal employee, seasonal employees, seasonal factors, seasonal rainfall, seasonal rates, seasonal sickness, seasonal staff, seasonal temperature, seasonal weather, sickness absence, sickness absence management, sickness absence monitoring, sickness absence policies, sickness absence policy, sickness absence reporting, sickness absenteeism, sickness and absence policy, staff absenteeism, work absence, work absenteeism, workplace absenteeism, workplace sickness
+44 (0) 1273 669 707
