Keeping organisational productivity high can be difficult, particularly when managing employee absences.
Manual methods of time recording (e.g., spreadsheets) are famously unreliable, and this is without considering the wealth of issues that come with employee absences!
From unclear policies to imbalanced workloads, overcoming these challenges requires a structured approach to absence management.
Challenge 1: High absenteeism rates
High absenteeism can disrupt your team’s workflow. With increased operational costs (and a potential decline in morale), frequent unplanned absences can lead to:
- Missed deadlines
- Overburdened staff
- A decline in overall productivity
So, how can management prevent burnout?
Solution?
An absence management system that incorporates features like overtime and Time Off in Lieu (TOIL) tracking can allow employees to manage extra hours worked.
An integrated employee holiday tracker simplifies the process of calculating additional hours and allows overtime to be given back as TOIL or holiday entitlement. Absence management, while reducing manual admin tasks, can also promote a healthy work-life balance.
Challenge 2: Lack of clear absence policies
Poorly communicated absence policies can lead to confusion amongst staff. Employees may be uncertain about procedures for requesting leave, reporting absences, or understanding their entitlements, which can lead to mismanagement.
Solution?
Invest in a management system that can centralise all HR documents into easily accessible folders, including:
- Absence policies
- Procedures
- HR documents
Using these modern systems, HR managers can upload and manage important documents in one secure location. All employees can have access to the most up-to-date information, which guarantees company-wide consistency in policy application.
Challenge 3: Insufficient tracking
Inadequate tracking of attendance (and work hours more generally) can lead to several issues:
- Payroll inaccuracies
- Compliance issues
- An inability to monitor productivity effectively
Without precise records, businesses may struggle to identify patterns of absenteeism or overwork.
Solution?
All companies could benefit from an absence management system that allows for comprehensive time tracking. With copy-in-rota features, managers can record rotas for employees with consistent schedules.
Staff can also manually record their working hours, including multiple daily periods and overnight work, for greater accuracy.
Challenge 4: Handling unplanned absences
Businesses must have a structured approach to managing unforeseen absences, like sickness. Without a platform capable of addressing unforeseen events, workflow bottlenecks will become more challenging and, potentially, inevitable.
Solution?
Sickness management goes hand-in-hand with absenteeism. Advanced absence management systems include features that allow managers to record sickness efficiently, either from a desktop or via a mobile app.
These platforms also feature absence alerts, which flag regular occurrences of sick leave so that businesses can offer support to employees in need.
Challenge 5: Balancing workload across teams
To keep productivity levels high, managers must efficiently distribute workloads among team members. However, without proper oversight, some employees may become overburdened while others are underutilised.
Solution?
Time tracking is a must-have in any absence management system. This feature, which provides detailed insights into how time is allocated across tasks, gives managers access to a wealth of data.
The data can then be used to identify workload imbalances and make more informed decisions about project assignments.
