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How Can Involvement Help Tackle Absenteeism?

27 July 2013 / by Ashley Freeman

Did you know;

 

–       The average UK worker has 10 days of ‘unscheduled absences’ each year

–       The average cost per worker for employers is £673 (CIPD Report)

 

Now consider this:

 

–       The average ‘engaged’ employee takes 2/3 ‘unscheduled absences each year

 

I’ll let you do the maths.

 

Put simply; these figures suggest that companies who are able to create an involved workforce stand to save a considerable amount of money and lost productivity based on attendance figures alone!

 

It’s no secret that absenteeism is a major drain on company resources across the country. Every day that one of your team is ‘off sick’, you are losing money and wasting valuable time. Unfortunately, although many companies recognise that they need to tackle this problem, most approach it in completely the wrong way.

 

Tackling Absenteeism

 

There are two possible approaches to tackling absenteeism. The most common approach is to enforce attendance.

 

Although this can be very effective in curing the symptom and delivering short-term results, unfortunately this approach is only likely to drive the employee in question to further disengage with their job and colleagues.

 

The second approach is to increase the autonomy and responsibility of your workforce. Though it may seem counter intuitive, team members who have more control over how and where they work are far more likely to take responsibility and get involved with what they are doing.

 

Clearly, this second option will work better with some team members than others. To ensure that you aren’t left with an empty office and a whole team ‘working from home’, you will need to build in some ‘outer limits’. If you feel that an employee is taking advantage of the flexibility and control you’ve given them, you need to have effective, productive systems in place to correct the problem.

 

As a manager, you should never approach absenteeism as a distinct problem. If someone is sick, they should be able to stay at home. However, if they are taking additional ‘sick’ days to avoid coming into work, there are clearly much deeper problems that need to be addressed in the most productive way possible.

The answer? Increase involvement!

 

Are you struggling with high absenteeism in your organisation? Looking for a solution? Why not get in touch and find out how we can help?

 

 

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