Managing staff absences effectively

Colin Foote, Director - Employment & Equality Law

Your absence policy will cover a number of issues such as sickness, authorised and unauthorised absences from work and also problems such as being late for work or taking longer on lunch breaks or other breaks than is permitted.

Absence from work can be caused by a number of problems, some even linked to your business, such as shift patterns or even employee engagement.

Therefore, in order to really get behind the reasons for poor attendance at work, you need to measure the levels of absence, the reasons why and who is absent.

Most people who are absent from work fall into one of three categories:

• They are sick
  

• They have to stay home due to responsibilities to their family
  

• They have authorised absence – for example annual leave, maternity or parental leave or are on a training course or doing other work outside of their workplace
  

You can plan for authorised absences and ensure that you have cover in place, but you cannot plan for unauthorised absence and this can be a problem for your business and your other staff. The odd day off here and there can be disruptive and this is the type of behaviour that will lead you to take disciplinary action against your staff.

Your absence policy should identify clearly how many periods of sickness you will allow within any 12 month period and then what will occur after this. This could be no pay for any further sick days and a verbal warning about their absence.

The policy should also provide details of sickness reporting processes and the procedure once they return to work. This might involve a meeting with your employee to discuss their sickness and to ask if there is anything you can do to help. This could be an opportunity for your employee to discuss any issues they may be facing, such as stress at work, which may be affecting their attendance. You then have an opportunity to help your employee and ensure that you do all you can to assist them.

After all, UK businesses are losing £29bn through sickness absence each year, with the average employee taking more than 6.5 days off ill each year. Anything you can do to reduce this bill, can only help your business.

For more information about this article or any aspect of our employee relations solutions, law services, please call Colin Foote on +44 (0) 28 9077 4500 (there is no charge for initial telephone discussions).