How to manage employee absence in the workplace
Unexpected absence is costly — especially for small businesses where just one team member missing can derail a project significantly. While some absences are impossible to avoid, there are often small changes you can make to your culture, policies, and approach that promote higher levels of employee attendance.
In this guide, we’ll explain absence management, why you need it, and how to manage employee absence in a small business — including some tips that we’ve learned along the way as we’ve grown Charlie.
What is absence management?
Absence management covers the initiatives we put in place to try and reduce the number of days lost to employee absence. While not every unexpected day off is avoidable, the right absence management strategy and approach can make it easier for your employees to make it to work.
At many businesses, absence management includes monitoring absence, introducing or updating policies, offering support to employees, and promoting a culture where transparency is encouraged. Together, these elements can help reduce employee absence.
Why employee absence needs to be managed
Recent research from the CIPD uncovered that employee sickness rates are the highest they’ve been for a decade, with the average rate of employee absence now at 7.8 days per employee (or 3.4% of working time lost per year). If you don’t take a strategic approach to employee absence management, your average sick days may be even higher — leading to less productivity and more disruption.
Not managing employee absence can lead to a range of challenges, including:
- Service disruption: an inability to continue working as you normally would, which can impact customers.
- Lower productivity: without a key team member available, work gets completed more slowly.
- Higher staffing costs: you may need to bring in a temp, or pay sick pay.
- Decreased employee morale: if there’s an underlying issue that isn’t being dealt with, morale can be impacted.
- Increased levels of stress: not providing the right support can lead to higher stress levels.
- Lower employee retention: unchecked toxic work culture and unspoken problems can cause people to leave for another job.
In a small business, everyone’s working hard and even one team member missing can have a huge impact. To stay productive and competitive, you need a strategy or framework for managing employee absence rates.
How to manage employee absence in a small business
While you can’t avoid every staff absence, there are steps you can take to reduce the chances of them happening in the first place. Here’s how to approach employee absence management within a small business.
1. Evaluate your workplace and culture
Start by considering what it’s like to work at your company. Is the culture supportive? Is the working environment suitable? Is the workload manageable, or is it likely to lead to burnout? Have there been incidents of bullying or poor communication?
Evaluate what life is like at your company for your employees, and consider whether you can make any changes to the culture, physical environment, and overall atmosphere to encourage a more positive employee experience.
2. Set clear absence management policies
Before you can begin to manage absence, you first need to clearly define it for your employees. Create or update your absence policies and make sure they’re fit for purpose.
Define different types of absences, explain how sick pay works, cover disciplinary action for sickness absence, and provide all the information your employees need so it’s easy for them to report absence or get support if they need it.
It’s useful to have separate policies for different types of absence. Splitting out your annual leave, sickness, unpaid leave, parental leave, TOIL leave, and other leave policies makes it easy for employees to find the most relevant information quickly.
3. Offer training to managers
Everyone should be clear on what the absence management process looks like, and it’s essential that line managers feel confident in how to monitor and manage absenteeism effectively. Provide training for any managers within your team, and let them know they can come to you with any questions.
Alongside your clear policies and training, put together some easy to understand factsheets or notes that managers and employees can refer to when they need them. Consider storing these in one central place — like your employee handbook. Take a look at our Charlie Handbook to see this in action.
4. Track employee absence
Understanding and reducing employee absenteeism starts with effective recording and monitoring. Set up a clear and easy-to-use system for employee attendance tracking, so you can identify trends before they become major issues.
While you can use a spreadsheet for this, we recommend investing in HR software that includes time off management. Record periods of absence, differentiate between long and short-term absences, and let the software help you visualise any potential problems. Some companies also choose to use the Bradford factor and its trigger points to alert to upcoming issues, but this isn’t always the most fair or suitable way to monitor absence.
5. Understand the reasons for employee absence
There are many different causes of absence, and some you’ll be able to reduce more effectively than others. Identifying the underlying cause behind absenteeism allows you to put initiatives in place to support your employees more effectively, hopefully leading to less time lost in the future.
Explore your data and ask employees to uncover the reasons why absence happens, so you can create a better work environment. Adjust workloads to reduce the chances of burnout, make policies clearer so illness doesn’t spread in the office, or change your approach to hybrid working to increase employee happiness.
6. Promote flexible working
We all have responsibilities and lives outside the workplace, and one way you can reduce employee absenteeism is by giving employees more autonomy over where and when they work.
Revisit your flexible working policy or introduce remote working to support employees to work at their best. Introducing flexible working makes it easier for employees to manage their time according to their needs, commitments, and energy levels — resulting in happier individuals.
7. Increase holiday allowance
It’s common for employees to feel burnt out — especially if it’s been a while since they last took an extended break. If this is becoming an issue for your small business, consider increasing employees’ holiday entitlement by a few days.
If your holiday allowance is already generous, explore whether there’s a reason your annual leave policy is not being used effectively. Promote the benefits of taking breaks, reduce friction in your holiday request process, and encourage employees to take regular breaks to avoid burnout.
8. Introduce duvet days
Trying to work when you’re not feeling at your best is tough. Many employees would be tempted to keep going and pull themselves into the office, when really they could benefit from a day off to recharge. Make this an easy option for them by introducing personal or “duvet” days.
Encourage employees to use these instead of sick days when they need unexpected time off work that they feel doesn’t fall under the typical “sick leave” banner. Personal days are a useful bonus for everyone, but they’re especially helpful to anyone experiencing mental health concerns or anyone that needs extra time to process, recharge, or rest following a busy project. At Charlie, everyone gets four “no questions asked” personal days every year.
9. Introduce supportive benefits and perks
As a small business, you’re in a much easier position to introduce useful, tailored perks and benefits than a much bigger corporation. Work together with your employees to understand what they’d benefit from the most, and find a way to make it happen.
Introduce employee wellbeing benefits like counselling, gym memberships, and discounts on services that can help employees improve their overall health and lifestyle. Pair this with in-work perks like flexible working and deep focus days to create a better work environment.
10. Reward employee attendance
Many of us are familiar with the idea of rewarding attendance from our days at school. You can introduce a similar system in the workplace to encourage higher levels of attendance — but be mindful of how you do it.
You could offer additional time off to employees with high attendance levels, or unlock extra perks or merch for low levels of absence. This should always be done thoughtfully though, and with consideration to fairness and equality.
11. Promote a healthy work-life balance
Employees that work too much and don’t get enough rest are prone to burnout, higher levels of stress, and low employee morale. Create an environment where a healthy work-life balance is considered to be the norm, and encourage your employees to find a rhythm that feels comfortable to them.
Practical ways you can promote a good work-life balance include offering flexible working, allowing remote or hybrid working, reducing work hours, introducing no-meetings days, offering wellness perks, and considering alternative working schedules — like Charlie’s nine day fortnight.
12. Hold return to work interviews
When an employee returns from a period of absence, particularly a long-term absence, you should hold a return to work interview to help them settle back in. Not only does this meeting ensure a smoother transition for them, but you can also uncover valuable insights into how you can improve your employee absence management in the future.
In cases of health issues or long-term sickness, you may be able to identify opportunities to improve your wellness support or make reasonable adjustments to workspaces. You might also identify other changes you can make, like making a policy clearer or offering more training.
13. Seek professional support
In some cases, you may need extra support to manage absent employees — especially if you’re dealing with health conditions or a sensitive subject. In moments like this, it’s best to call on the help of occupational health or an expert HR advisor to support you through the process.
Getting the right help can mean the difference between an employee feeling happy and supported and them leaving for another job. In a small business where every person matters, take every step you can to ensure that your employees feel comfortable and supported throughout whatever challenge they may be facing.
14. Promote feedback and transparency
There’s a lot you can do to create a better work environment and reduce employee absenteeism, but it’s always best to tackle specific issues that your employees are experiencing. Encourage feedback and create a culture of transparency, so employees know they are free to raise issues and concerns, and that you’ll deal with them.
Having a culture of feedback gives your employees confidence that any challenge they bring to you will be listened to and handled in a fair way. Give your team members different ways to share feedback — whether that’s in an anonymous suggestion box or an online form, in-person at your 1:1 meetings, or in a Slack channel.
Stay on top of employee absence management
Transform your approach from simply recording sickness leave to having an effective absence management system that leaves your small business in a better position to handle any unexpected absences.
Alongside these steps, use our guide to time off and absence in small businesses to create a strong foundation for better attendance and a happier, more productive workforce. With both resources, you’ll have everything you need to approach absence management from a strategic perspective.
Employee absence management FAQs
Have an unanswered question about employee absence management? Here are some of the questions we hear the most, along with our advice on the topic.
How do you manage absence in the workplace?
Workplace absence can be managed in a number of ways, including the steps we’ve outlined above. Some of the most effective methods include setting clear policies, introducing flexible working, hosting return to work interviews, and introducing wellness benefits.
What is the role of HR in absence management?
In a bigger business, the HR team would be responsible for writing, updating, and offering guidance on your absence policies and procedures. In a small business with no dedicated human resources individual, these managing time off tasks may fall to you.
What’s the difference between attendance management and absence management?
Attendance management is focused on tracking employee hours, productivity, and how time is spent while they’re at work. Absence management focuses on tracking, understanding, and dealing with employee absence — including identifying trends and patterns that might impact future productivity.
