HRBoss Blog

According to Mercer, the average cost of employee absence is equivalent to 35% of an employee’s salary. Absences result in 19% of net lost productivity per day and the indirect costs of absence includes business disruption, overtime, temporary workers, customer dissatisfaction and employee turnover.

Undeniably, absenteeism has a material effect on the business, but many organisations still aren’t tracking absences effectively or efficiently. This means that business leaders do not know if they have an absenteeism issue in their workforce, or if they do, how severe the problem is, what’s causing it – and most crucially - the costs accrued to the business. Are you one them?

Managing leave and absence effectively is most probably one of the biggest administrative challenges for any business, and here are 2 main reasons why:

1. Complex HR regulations and policies:
   It’s hard to stay compliant when government regulations are constantly changing, and polices are closely interrelated.
2. Too much paperwork:
   It’s not unusual to find companies managing leave and absence on spreadsheets or paper-based systems. Ensuring accurate and up-to date records translates into even more admin work for your team.

If you’re relying on multiple systems to track leave and absences, getting an overview of absenteeism in your organisation becomes even more elusive. But without a clear picture of all the missed work days across the organisation, how do you implement the right strategies to monitor, reduce and respond to absenteeism?

Managing leave and absence goes beyond simply tracking whether an employee clocked-in or not. To mitigate the impact of absenteeism, you need to see trends to effectively control costs, and be able to identify employees with attendance issues so that you can improve workforce productivity.

Learn how to not let absenteeism drag your company down. Download the whitepaper: A Smarter Approach to Managing Leave & Absence