Many companies are finishing the year computing their annual profits and finishing up their financial reports that have their upper executives smiling. Others though are reporting losses, and a significant contributor to those loses are high employee abesenteeism rates. When employees are not at work many companies feel that there isn’t much they can do to improve the situation. They figure that the absenteeism rates are due to personal issues at home, or other issues that the employer has no control over.
What they have failed to realize though is that for many employers, the reason their employee absentee rates are so high is because of failures of the company to keep their employees in the workplace. Companies must take action if they want to reduce this trend of employee absenteeism that resulted in an employee absenteeism rate at it’s highest point since the year of 1999 in 2007 according to a report from TeachingSelfMastery.com.
For companies that have trouble keeping employees in the workplace, the costs can expand very quickly. The first costs they face is the lost productivity from that employee that is out of the office that day. Then, with employers focussing more on teams in recent years, the employer also loses production from any team that employee was assigned to. If that employee is a mentor or a team leader, it is likely they will lose production from those other employees that look to that employee for assistance. Finally, if the absenteeism becomes severe, the employer may have to consider firing the employee. If this happens the employer will then realize an additional cost in training that employee’s replacement.
There are ways for employers to avoid these high absenteeism rates. One key task is to do a yearly employee satisfaction survey. This should be done early in the year, or late in the previous year so changes can be made as needed. Find out what motivates the employees to show up for their job. Would they be willing to work more during busy periods in exchange for comp time to use as time off during “off-peak” periods. Or do your employees value the ability to earn overtime money? Finding out what motivates your employees will help keep them in the office.
Consider implementing programs for good attendance. Some offices offer small token gifts for employees that don’t use up all their sick leave in a year to avoid “phantom sicknesses. Consider other programs such as entering anyone that doesn’t take a vacation day (this is vacation, not sick days) into a drawing. Give out a large number of small prizes, and one or two large ones. Consider restaurant gift cards for the small prizes, and maybe your company can work out a day with a local resort hotel or motel for a long weekend at a reduced price for the company to pay as the large prize.
Employers are facing a significant employee absenteeism problem, and it costs them a significant amount of money in lost productivity. To avoid these losses, the employers must be pro-active in eliminating or reducing this problem. Having employee satisfaction surveys and acting on them, rewarding employees for good attendance, and making employees feel valued and respected are just a few ways employers can help start to reduce their own employee absenteeism problems in the workplace.
SOURCES:
Prnewswire.com. “Highest ‘Employee Absenteeism’ Rate Since 1999 Costing Industry Billions”.
URL:http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY;=/www/story/12-19-2007/0004725482&EDATE;=
