Managing short term absence
Posted on 8th May 2021
Any employee absence can have an impact on a Company. For small businesses, there are times when short-term absences are not dealt with until they either become a long-term absence or it has started to have an impact on the team. Absences can also be costly and very disruptive.
In order to be able to manage absences, employers must have an effective measuring and monitoring system in place, which means that there should be a method of recording all absences including those where employees go home early as they are not feeling well, or decide to use their holiday for a sick day so they receive full pay or make the time up at a later date.
Having a robust sickness policy is the key to managing absences.
Few points to include for reporting absence
π’ What time the absence has to be reported by - have a time to ensure you are able to reorganise the workload π’ Who can report the employees absence - in majority of the cases, this should be the employee π’ Who they should report their absence to - which should be the line manager or another manager π’ Reason for the absence π’ How absences can be recorded, donβt accept text or email messages as standard π’ If they leave a message they must provide a number for the line manager to return the call π’ Include a return to work interview π’ Have trigger points for further discussion
Return to work Interviews
Return to work interviews are very important to help identify any underlying issue at an early stage and assist managers to commence having conversations in relation to absences. Using factual data is a lot easier to start the conversation which could include: π’ total number of days absence within a certain period π’ total number of instances of absence within a certain period π’ current number of days absent π’ the days of the week the employee is absent π’ fully explore the reasons for the current absence π’ explaining the impact the absence has on the team.
Ensure that your Sickness Absence Policy also includes the circumstances when formal action will be taken.
Please do not hesitate to contact daxa@hrresultsltd.co.uk if you would like to discuss the plan you would like to put in place. Taking HR from 'TO DO' to 'DONE'.
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