Managing Employee Absence - Essay Example

Managing Employee Absence Student Name: Course Code: HR2050 Institution: Date of Submission: Introduction In the recent past, employee absence has received greater attention among organizations and employers. The basic reason behind this is the increased emphasis on organization’s and employer’s responsibility on ‘duty of care’ towards their employees, increased attention and concerns by organizations to maximizelaborutilizationas a result of highly changing and competitive market environment, and the minimization of the negative effects and operational disruption caused by employee absence. Furthermore, research indicates that all organizations are likely to experience levels of absence due various reasons such as job situation factors, personal factors and attendance factors' (Armstrong, 2006). This seeks to assess the importance of absence management procedure and the importance of policy framework for Governing Bodies. It also provides, briefly, organizations with importance of practical steps on the main objectives aimed at supporting an employee’s return to work. In order to achieve these objectives, organizations should know the importance of managing employee absence from an early stage to avoid further costs suffered by the organization and the employee as well. The nature and extent of absence It is normal to categorize employee absence in a number of ways such as planned, unplanned, long term, and short-term absenteeism. For the purposes of this study,the importance of managing general absenteeism of any kind is the main key item. Unplanned employee absence comprises that attributed to the onset of employee sickness and employee time off to attend to other private issues such as family businesses and emergency medical appointments (Raj, 2010). In most cases, unplanned absence is a short-term form of absence. Planned employee absence from work comprises annual leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, religious holidays, career breaks, and time off for training and study among others. Planned employee absence can be long term or short-term. However, any form of absence has some weight of effects and costs towards the production of an organization and therefore, the importance of managing it. Absence Notification This is one of the most important aspects of managing absence in an organization. On the first day of absence, the employee has the responsibility of notifying the manager or any other designated person. Notification of absence to the manager will allow the manager to make possible arrangements to ensure that productivity does not suffer much from the employee absence. Absence notification will also be a formal communication that will later on help the employee avoid any absence punishments agreed upon signing employment contracts. In such a way, both the organization and the employee will avoid the negative impacts of absence (Mathis & John, 2012). Importance of Managing Employee Absence Although senior management within most organizations do not understand the full costs of employee absence from work, the existence of formal policies applied by various organizations to manage employee absence remains a function of the size and nature of the organizational culture. These formal policies adopted by organizations are instrumental in defining the correct procedures for managing employee absence and therefore reduce costs such as the costs felt from the store all the way to home office. Furthermore, failure to formulate strategies that encourage employee attendance may also increase the rate of absenteeism and thus putting a huge burden on the present employees (Kate, 2008). It is a common place factor that employees support themselves on genuine absenteeism resulting from illness yet it is also a fact that repeated absences have the likelihood of straining the morale of any team and thus higher chances of creating a negative and sometimes hostile working environment. In some organizations, practices that regulate access to time off minimize the negative impacts of absence had built up informally over time, mostly depending on the discretion of the organization’s top management. In practice, this implies that the informal practices aimed at reducing absences and maximizing productivity and profitability. Organizational managers understand that few employees attending work may have rough time handling influx of many customers. Employee absences may cause a reduction in time of customer service and thus reduction in opportunities to cross-sell other organizational products and poor development of customer relationship (Armstrong, 2006). In the end, customers and suppliers may cut their services if the organization consistently falls short of expectations. However, the use of formal procedures to manage employee absence from work is useful in the sense that they help in the creation of an environment of trust and mutuality within an organization, creation of compliance with various legislations on employee absence, and to ensure all staffis enlightened on their basic rights. Finally, another importance of employee absence management is its requirement to inform managers and employees within an organization on what was acceptable and what was not acceptable within management of absence. It is also organization’s concern to ensure proper management of employee absence to cut down costs incurred through hiring and payment of replacement employees, indirect cost through loss of productivity, and payments made to the absent employees who practically did not participate in production. Without employee attendance system and proper absence management strategies, organizations put themselves at a risk of failure to comply with some critical union agreements and important employee rights stipulated in the government regulations (Bevan, et al 2004). Such rights include maternity, paternity, and disability as prescribed in the Working Time Directive. Therefore, organizations develop employee absence management policies to help the organization realize maximum profitability and to ensure compliance with existing laws and regulations. According to Armstrong (2011), most organizations adopt almost similar methods of handling various forms of absences with the common reasons of maintaining productivity and encouraging employee return to work. However, some organizations may apply a different form of arrangement when it fells the absence management arrangement best suits the organization. However, despite any disparity in absence management strategies among various organizations, many organizations understand the basic reason behind managing employee absence as reducing the costs that a company can incur throughout the period of absenteeism. Recording Absence Monitoring employee absence requires organizations to keep accurate and reliable records. It is the responsibility of line managers to ensure that cases remain recorded and then reported to the senior management of Human Resource department. It is also the responsibility of the of the management to ensure that the necessary forms such as Notification of Absence and Return to Duty form are in good condition, completed, and submitted to Employment Services on employee return to work. Therefore, line managers must communicate regularly with the Employment Service in concern to employee absence. This recording is important since if employee absences are not recorded accurately within the organization, not only does it make the calculation of mandatory statistical analysis by the Human Resources Department inaccurate, but it also means that employee absence trends or patterns are difficult to identify, which subsequently jeopardies the entire process of future employee absence management program. In addition, it also brings in difficulty of assessing job-based sicknesses that result in employee seeking leave. Therefore, recording employee is a vital role of the Human Resource department with the basic reasons of assessing the trends and patterns of employee absences and monitoring job-based illness (Taylor, et al 2010). Return to Work Arrangements This is one important aspect of employee absence management. One most important feature of return to work discussion is that it is informal in its nature with the basic support of employee welfare in mind. Without taking into consideration the period of absence or the cause for it, the necessity and appropriateness of a return to work interview is always a priority of various organizations (Martin, 2008). The line manager to the returning employee should conduct this interview and discussion in the earliest opportunity possible but not later than 14 days after return. The aim of the discussion should be to understand the cause of the absence and employee’s willingness to continue with work. Most importantly, the meeting should always focus on taking an interest in the employee’s welfare and the manager should make brief and confidential notes at the meeting, signed by both parties. These notes should remain filed in the employees personnel file (Bratton & Gold, 2012). These notes will be a good source of evidence and a reminder should an issue over attendance of the employeecome up again in the future. However, the manager should be keen to record issues or points that the two parties will agree upon in the meeting. Points not agreed upon should not appear in the recorded notes or in the employee’s personal file. With this in mind, employers find it very important to keep records of employee absence and their return to work interviews. Conclusion Although certain levels of employee absence in most organizations is an unavoidable element in daily life, it is also a common feature in developing a normal and healthy working environment as employees will get time to attend to some family and private issues. However, this statement does not mean that all forms of absences are inevitable and therefore should be accepted passively. This is evident with employee absence from work bringing in huge impact on the organization. It affects staff morale, affects customer satisfaction, reduces the quality output, and reduces organization’s general productivity. Whether the absence of the employee is acceptable or planned, incidental, or extended, it carries some serious costs. Salary cost, on costs, costs of temporary replacement staff, total net loss in productivity, and impact on co-workers when summed up together gives the total costs of workplace absence. The major causes of workplace absence are a range of complex and interrelated factors that alter an employee’s ability to discharge assigned duties as required of them.The creation of an organizational culture whereby employees feel committed and engaged reduces the rates of employee absence. It is also worth concluding that having considered the negative impacts of employee absence, organizations and employers find it paramount to have good strategies for employee absence management. This is because such strategies will provide room for recording employee absence for future reference since an organization may need to review its absence management strategy by observing its trends. Reference List Armstrong, M 2006, A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan, London. Armstrong, M 2011, Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Practice, 11th ed, Kogan, London. Bevan, Set al 2004, How Employers Manage Absence: Employment Relations Research Series ERRS25, Department of Trade and Industry. Bratton, J & Gold, J 2012, Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice, 5th ed. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Kate, R 2008, Off the Sick List! How to Turn Employee Absence into Attendance. MX Publishing, Sydney Martin, J 2008, Human Resource Management, SAGE, London. Mathis, L & John, J 2012, Human Resource Management: Essential Perspectives, Cengage Learning, Boulevard. Raj, K 2010, Human Resource Management: Strategic Analysis Text and Cases, I. K. International Pvt Ltd, New Delhi. Taylor, P et al 2010, Too sick to go to work– reformulating the agenda on sickness absence. Industrial Relations Journal, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 270-280. Torrington, D et al 2011, Human Resource Management, 8th ed. FT Prentice Hall, Harlow. Read More