How Poor Employee Attendance Drags Profit Down - and How to Fix It
Statistics has shown that the level of absenteeism has risen significantly over the last year, costing American companies lose substantial amount of money every year. According OnForce, Inc a leading career searching firm, absenteeism at the workplace means much more a direct cost to the employees account, because it involves effects than can ripple through the organization such as high employee turnover, compromise quality, lead to loss of performance and productivity. To counter this growing problem it is incumbent for companies, especially the Human resource departments to come up with solutions that begin by looking into the causes. Companies should also look closely the
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Research has shown that between; 1/3 to 2/3 of all claims of illness, for lost work days are disingenuous. In addition, half of the days taken off are spent other matters other than illness. This matter translates to two out of every three employees. The resulting effect of absenteeism is companies losing money and the tightening of the loopholes employees use as excuses including genuine forgivable excuses.
Reasons Causing Absenteeism
There are many reason advanced for growing cases of casual absenteeism, which started in the early nineties. Chief among these reasons is workplace boredom and low morale. The trend started when employers began issuing voluntary overtime; however, the trend took a bad turn when employees took it upon themselves to leave work in order to attend to their personal matters.
The guilt of leaving work unfinished, led employees to look for reprieve elsewhere by abusing personal time. The consequence of the excusals bred workplace crisis as well as job burnout, low employee morale and general absence. According to CBRI, below is a list of 10 things the management department can do to prevent the rising cases of
Employees can be absent from work either due to Long-term sickness, short-term certified or uncertified sickness or unauthorised absence and lateness. Absenteeism will not include annual leave , maternity, compassionate or absence due to training or attending union meetings but where a worker fails to turn up at work as scheduled resulting in disruption of work schedule, added work load, increased payroll costs and poor quality service an d poor staff morale.
Casual employment is often connected with unpleasant working condition including irregular working hours, low wages, intermittent employment and employment insecurity. Casual employment is usually dubbed with as employment with few benefits and rights. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), casual employees are defining as the employees who cannot get paid for their sick leave or annual leave. This definition reflects the most important aspects of causal works (Buddelmeyer, and Wooden, 2011).
Reduces unscheduled absences––this benefit saves employers money. According to Lister, 78% of employees who take sick time, aren’t really sick, but do so due to family issues, stress or other personal problems. Unscheduled absences cost employers an average of $1,800/employee/year; that adds up to $300 billion/year for U.S. companies
Over time, this dull pain can erode the self-confidence and passion of even the strongest people, which in turn, affects their spouses and children and friends in subtle but profound ways… Though it may be difficult to quantify, the dissatisfaction of employees has a direct impact on productivity, turnover, and morale, all of which eventually hit a company’s bottom line hard,” (p. ix –
An article that was written by Bill Wilkerson, CEO of Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health, conducted a survey to find the top ten workplace stressors. In a report submitted to the Industrial Accident Prevention Association, Wilkerson listed the following ten reasons for workplace stress and after each one is an brief explanation of how better communication could remedy the situation.
A loss of a job also means the loss of socializing with coworkers. "According to psychologists, in terms of stressful events, the loss of a good job ranks only slightly below a divorce or the death of a loved one" (McEachern, 2015, pg. 104). Economist debate that the other consequences of unemployment can have a critical effect on the person 's health than the loss of salary itself. Unemployment has been connected to a larger prevalence of delinquency and to a range of illnesses, including chronic disease, thoughts of suicide and depression. Individuals who do not work have been reported as always sad, but if they find a job, their sadness decreases simultaneously. Even though people may complain about their jobs, they still need their jobs not only to maintain their livelihood, but for their own personal sake. Furthermore, the individual price of unemployment levies a charge on the economy all because fewer goods and services are being manufactured. The ones who are actually eager and capable to work and they are having hard time finding a job; their employment is gone indefinitely. "This lost income and output coupled with the economic, psychological cost of unemployment on the individual and the family are the real costs of unemployment." (McEachern, 2015, pg.
The second problem is that it can affect your morale. For it affecting your morale, you will not be confident to work in that kind of environment. This will make you think mostly abo...
Management noticed the increased absenteeism levels were starting to have an effect on plant productivity.
Operational reasons (if a company has to dismiss employees for reasons which are related to purely business needs and not because of some failing on the part of the employee, example: retrenchment, redundancy).
The article for “Shirking: the War on Hooky” explained the difficult decision that a managers have to face with they coworkers abuse of absenteeism at work. Also the article evaluate how it causing companies billions of dollars when employees are taking advantage of the sick day policy and it decrease the productivity of the company workforce. The keys questions we have to keep in mind is sick day is generated from absenteeism, also it is part of any new or old employee orientation benefit package when they start working for an employer? The paper will describe different approached manager can used to reduce absenteeism among they coworkers. In how Human Resource should work with the managers to put in place a strong sick policy that represent the company needed and objective.
If there is no one willing to cover the shift for the sick employee, coworkers must adjust to cover both their work flow and the missing employee’s work flow. This is bad for the employee, customer, and the company. The whole work routine is interrupted. Employees also use sick leave unethically, wanting to save vacation time or having used all of their vacation time they call in sick to attend activities or for a “mental health” day when they are not actually sick. On the other hand, there are also employees that refuse to use sick leave. No matter how sick they are they still come to work. Moreover, employees that come to work sick are less productive, often contagious, and tend to take longer to get well. This type of employee thinks that co-workers should never miss work and they have an attitude when they do. Their expectation is that every absence should be dealt with by discipline, even when there is no abuse. They push themselves to the point of having medical issues that result in long term sick leave. Equally both types of employees are abusing sick leave policy.
Fitness programs can reduce absenteeism. There are many documented situations of fitness and wellness programs are effective. In a one-year study of over 500 employees, each took part in a work place fitness program. The for each employee that worked out as little one day a week, cut their average number of sick days in half, from over ten sick days on average in the previous year without any activity to less than five in the following year. The report also showed that the employees that did not maintain a workout load of at least once a week did not reduce any sick-days. (Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 1997; 39:827-831) Each of the participants followed a one-hour supervised workout consisting of a warm-up, stretching, calisthenics, cardiovascular and strength-building program. Later in the study Dr. Lilian Lechner, M.P.H. stated, “While previous studies have found that employees most likely to partake in workplace fitness programs are those who already get the most regular exercise and tend to be in better health, the current show that work-based fitness offers added health benefits for employees regardless of their fitness level.
If staff are absent from work they are not able to carry out the functions for which they have been employed. In many businesses, these functions have to be taken on by someone else - if not, the customer could suffer. Reducing absenteeism is an important feature of human resource management. The extent to which absenteeism affects businesses has been a topical feature. Not only does absenteeism cause problems, but employers are beginning to recognise the effects of 'presenteeism' - staying at work when you are ill or because you believe that in some way your 'presence' will help boost your promotion prospects.
Attendance is a crucial aspect of a student’s education. When a student is tardy or absent, this interferes with them receiving the information given in class. Class introductions that include instructions, objectives, due dates, etc. may be missed if a student is tardy and if a student is absent, they may also get behind on their class work and homework. Communication between teacher and students about the classroom management procedures for these two things are important so that students are informed and are able to take the initiative to gather what they have missed which can help avoid them falling behind. If tardies and absences are frequent, a teacher may begin to be concerned and question what could be the possible reasons behind it, whether that be an outside force in a student’s life or something that may be happening in the teacher’s own classroom. Establishing a relationship and reflecting upon oneself as a teacher to why the class might be having
Absenteeism is intentional or habitual absence in the workplace. It not only reduces the productivity, but also makes the company lose a lot of money. The issue of absenteeism should not be ignored. In order to help the company to reduce the cost and increase the productivity, the employers or the managers have a responsibility to know about the causes of absenteeism and how to reduce the absenteeism. There are some common causes of absenteeism that the managers should know that, such as workplace`s bullying, workplace`s condition, employee`s health, and unfairness. In the follow part, this research paper will show you how these issues relate to the absenteeism, and will also show you how to reduce the absenteeism. Absenteeism can be prevented or reduced, the cost cause by absenteeism can also be improved. The managers should know that.