A Healthy Absence Strategy and Why You Need One

Success comes down to more than just planning for the expected; it also involves strategizing for life’s curveballs. That's why an effective absence management plan is so important. Here’s why a healthy absence management strategy matters.

The importance of developing a comprehensive absence strategy cannot be overstated. It can help businesses maximize productivity, and reduce costs.

An absence strategy can also ensure employees have the support they need to do their job and ultimately maintain their health and well-being.

Let’s dive deeper into what absence management means. In this blog post, we’ll also explain how human resources tools such as those provided by flair can help you develop absence policies. The goal should be to enhance employee work-life balance and mitigate potentially troublesome scenarios caused by unplanned leave.

What Is Absence Management?

Missing work due to vacation or something outside of one's control – whether it be illness, injury, or other personal matters –  is classed as an absence.

Unplanned absences can severely impact businesses and productivity. It means good attendance policies are essential for any workplace.

Put simply, absence management is an employer's way of handling staff leave or even holiday requests. It is the policies, procedures, and systems put in place to minimize workplace disruption when employees miss work for whatever reason.

Characteristics of Great Absence Management

There are laws that typically govern the baseline state of employee absences. But having the right policies in place is also essential. They can make a big difference in how efficiently absences are managed and actually set the tone for the work environment.

An effective absence management strategy really is a win-win, providing cost savings while simultaneously improving the employee experience and preserving productivity levels. Here are some factors that should be implemented within an absence management system.

Protect Productivity

An effective absence management strategy maintains workflow continuity when workers are unavailable. To do this, the system in place should allow management to foresee and plan for moments when productivity levels might drop.

For example, the use of shift planners and work schedule calendars can be a good starting point for ensuring you are covered if people are unexpectedly absent, taking options like maternity leave, or preparing to go on holiday.

An effective absence management structure is proactive, meaning that even if the unexpected does happen, you can easily identify the problem and set a contingency plan in place.

Enhance Well-Being

Employers must remember that behind every statistic is a real person. Productivity numbers are not everything and burnout is very real. It's essential to take into account each individual employee in order for businesses to truly thrive.

Employees require sick leave and well-deserved holidays. Establishing channels for staff to communicate and request time off is vital to fostering a pleasant work environment. Your absence management procedure should take into account employee well-being and mental health. It should be compassionate to their circumstances or needs. Paid sick leave, return to work programs, wellness programs, flexible working hours, and the freedom to choose vacation time all enhance staff well-being and the overall employee experience.

Easy to Understand

An absence strategy that is coherent, communicated, and easy to follow gives staff the opportunity to understand company policy. It also provides a chance for people to ask any questions they might have. Make sure employee attendance rules are explained and outline the acceptable ways to communicate a leave of absence.

For example, are employees aware of how many days of vacation they are entitled to? What types of leave are available to staff? Do they know how to communicate about a sick day? Is there a procedure for claiming shifts from absent colleagues?

Reduce Absenteeism

Absenteeism can certainly be costly. Avoidable absences result in billions of avoidable costs and revenue losses worldwide.

An accepted procedure for handling absences encourages an open dialogue between employer and employee. Such openness and trust can help minimize unauthorized or unnecessary leave. Absence management that is applied to employee engagement can actually help reduce absenteeism. According to a study in Gallup’s Business Journal, employees who experience low levels of engagement are 67% more likely to be absent.

Transparent

Transparency is key when creating absence policies. Your absence management policies should be crystal clear to everyone. This ensures that employees understand the expectations, and employers have a vision for employee attendance. Make sure to outline how leave of absence decisions are made and categorize types of absences.

Do people know who is responsible for leave policies and is there a procedure to communicate with that individual, team, or HR department? Are there obvious support structures in place for the return of absent employees? These are all topics that should be considered when implementing an absence management strategy.

Measurable

Your absence management strategy should allow you to keep track of the number of absences and workdays for each employee. This is important to ensure the correct number of sick days are provided and holiday pay is correct. But this data can also provide you with other valuable insights. They can be a good indicator of how employees are responding to your workplace and the company atmosphere. After all, a bad work vibe is a contributory factor to short term absenteeism.

For example, in 2021, a study by Culture Shift, 71% of UK workers admitted that they had called in sick due to a toxic work environment. Some 61% said they had taken long-term leave due to workplace bullying or harassment.

By creating attendance policies and accrual systems absence management can be more efficient while potentially troublesome work culture patterns can be highlighted. Absenteeism costs can also be minimized.

Adaptable

If the last couple of years has taught us anything, it’s that we need to be ready to adapt workplace conditions when the unexpected happens. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, who would have thought that many of us would be in remote work or have more flexible scheduling?

An effective absence management strategy is essential for ensuring that everyone's needs are met. It should be able to adjust and evolve in order to keep up with changing workplace demands, environmental changes, or even health crises.

Absence Management Software

Automating tasks with absence management software is a great way to keep track of your employees' absences and ensure that everything continues to run smoothly within your organization.

With the help of smart software and tools, you can easily maintain organized records, manage employee leave requests, and also prevent costly payroll errors due to attendance discrepancies. There are a number of absence management tools on the market. Here’s how flair’s solution can enhance your HR strategies and workforce management, streamline processes surrounding worker leave, and also reduce associated costs.

The flair Solution

Whatever your business, flair offers an easy and bespoke way for you to build an absence management policy. Our Absence Management feature is...

Customizable

We know that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to business. Whether through our HR app on Salesforce or the browser-based Employee Hub, our tools are flexible to the needs of the workplace and user. With an intuitive Employee Hub dashboard that caters to staff and management, choose how you communicate or respond to absences with flair. Empower your employees to give notice or send leave requests in good time through the Employee Hub or integrated tools like Slack.

With the flair HR app on Salesforce, HR managers and team leaders can also build and organize an absence management system that respects employees’ rights while achieving and maintaining productivity aims.

Modern

Our software provides real-time notifications on leave requests while calculating and tallying balances per year. With many options to automate workflows, flair lightens the load for modern human resource departments often tasked with the time-consuming job of tracking absences, documenting leave, and facilitating paid time off. The Manager Dashboard in the Employee Hub and the HR app on Salesforce also provide actionable statistics on attendance.

Employee-Conscious

Absences are part and parcel of business life. So it’s important that employees also have their say if the unfortunate arises. The flair HR solution is built with both HR professionals and other employees in mind. The intuitive Employee Hub provides your staff with a space to structure their work day and also communicate in a clear and open way their vacation requests or absence needs.

In the Employee Hub, staff can easily request absences with the click of a button. Instant notifications are sent via email or push notifications to managers who can then respond accordingly. No more miscommunication while people are feeling under the weather. Alternatively, absence or holiday requests can also be made on the go via our Slack-integrated app.

Transparent

flair provides an unclouded means to keep track of staff leave across different departments, calendars, and time zones. With the HR app on Salesforce, management can simply define absence categories, set out accrual policies, and assess absence data.

Employees are also given an easy way to request absences. From there on, management can click approve, reject, or provide more details. Simple.

Versatile

Through the flair Salesforce apps, Employee Hub, and integrated tools, users can carry out HR tasks either remotely, in-office, or even on the go. flair also integrates with your favorite tools such as Google Calendar, Slack, Figma, Loom, and more. The solution is flexible and allows users to work with additional programs that matter to them.

Immediate

In a busy workplace, making the most of your resources is important. That means reducing miscommunication and decision-making delays. Changes made via the flair absence management tools on Salesforce or the Employee Hub happen in real-time. Prioritize, plan, and implement your strategy in the moment with flair.

A healthy absence strategy starts with being proactive. How you define it may be different for each organization, but the management structure should aim to achieve the same positive results. Once you have a plan in place, communicate it to your team members and make sure they understand their role in making it work.

For more information about absence management and what flair can offer, head over to our Learning Hub space. The online resource provides a full view of all the flair features and allows every employee a chance to learn how to use flair.

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