Employee absenteeism can be defined as frequent absence from their work. Such kind of absence can be categorized as the habitual absence that excludes paid time off or authorized leaves. In this post, we will look in detail the effects and causes of absenteeism and how an employer needs to tackle it. Without wasting any time, let us start:
Effects of Absenteeism
Workplace absenteeism affects both the employees and employers alike.
Some of the consequences for employers are:
- Huge administration costs.
- Lesser productivity levels.
- Lesser staff means poor customer service.
- High labor costs, especially if you hire a replacement or temporary workers.
Some of the consequences faced by employees:
- Loss of pay when absent.
- Decreased productivity after returning to work.
- If absenteeism is unexplained and frequent, members of staff can face dismissal.
Absenteeism can be costly for the workforce, and it is very important you know the strategies and causes to decrease it, for the benefit of everyone.
Causes of Absenteeism
There is not any one particular reason for absenteeism in the workplace, it is down for various reasons. Most of the reasons are legitimate, and some aren’t. Let us check out some of the common causes of absenteeism:
Common causes include:
- Stress, depression, and burnout: Developing mental health problems, stress, anxiety, and depression will cause the employees to miss their work. Higher pressures at work, relationship issues, and financial worries are some primary causes of burnout, depression, and stress.
- Harassment & bullying: Whereas many cities are now taking proper steps to address such issues in the workplace, it is still common for the people getting harassed or bullied and makes them avoid that place if it happens. So, it is one case when an employee is getting harassed or bullied by the employer or co-worker, they call in sick and avoid that situation altogether.
- Lack of involvement: Disengaged staff are the ones that are not committed to the job, colleagues, or company. Such workers are likely to miss their work just because they are not much motivated to move in.
- Child care or other family responsibilities: Whenever some employees might have to take the unscheduled absence from their work to take care after an elder or any dependent family member. It can be down to the arrangements falling through and a family member being sick.
Ways to Tackle It Rightly
Investing in the workplace wellness initiatives will help to reduce absenteeism just by creating a healthy workplace culture, which offers employers with the proper tools that will help to improve their health at the workplace.
Behavioral Changes
Health and wellness solutions will help the employees to make some healthy behavioral changes, which might affect their health and making them stay absent from their work. Providing your worker’s lifestyle assessment days offer to give an overview of their health & provides a clear picture of where they are or what lifestyle changes have to be made to become healthier.
So, educating your employees about some health topics will make them aware and conscious about the health issues, it will be done through the health calendar that offers the bespoke program of the monthly wellness campaign, workshops, and events.
Offer Employee Support
For the employers to better support their employees, there has to be proper training on the management level, and managers have to become confident, compliant, and competent to deal with any issues that might be affecting their work attendance. This type of support will make a massive difference to the employees who are going through a tough time & make them feel highly valued.
The company must provide management training days that includes topic like mental health awareness, knowing the relationship between the performance and pressure, dealing and managing with the stress in the workplace, managing the change and developing the resilient teams & developing personal flexibility for the leaders.
Right Remuneration
Many times workers take up the side hustles and compensate for the poor remuneration. When they’re engaged in such kind of activities, they do not tend to care a lot about their work presence. And with time this turns in absenteeism. Thus, providing your employees with the right proper remuneration for work in an essential factor to keep them hooked to the workplace.
Decrease Stress
The workplace is one big source of depression and stress, and 15 million workdays get lost every year because of anxiety, stress, and depression. Stress will cause unplanned absences, thus trying to create a workplace environment where the employees feel relaxed and comfortable talking to the line managers who try to eliminate tension and stress. Certain solutions like office Pilates, office yoga, office tai chi, office massage, reflexology, aromatherapy, and beauty will help the employees to relax.
Rewards & Incentivization
Giving regular rewards and incentives to the employee with the best attendance record and work is an important step to motivate the rest of your workforce. It will help to boost employee morale whenever they come to know that their presence is highly appreciated in their workplace. You may opt for rewarding the employees with the best attendance each month. This can further motivate your employees to come to work & stay engaged.
Wrapping Up
Here we end our guide on absenteeism in the workplace. We have covered all areas from causes and other consequences of the absence behavior. The main point to know is that the high absence never happens in isolation. Many times, there are several other contributing factors, such as perception among the workers of getting ignored by the management, mismanagement, unpleasant organizational culture, and many other factors.
It is just not possible to design the workplace where all your employees work at 100% at all times. It is important to understand your employees are humans and not machines. So, by instituting the given practices, you may create the work environment that offers your employees more control and freedom over the schedules when addressing some highly common causes for unscheduled absences.
