HR: Managing
The Three Approaches
Definitions
Managing absence can best be described as the unscheduled time
off from work that occurs when an employee is not present at
work during a normally scheduled work period.
Absence is an important issue and a major concern to business,
government and employees and their families.
Facts and figures:
• It was estimated by The CIPD (2006a) that on average
employee sickness absence costs £598 per annum,
totaling an average of 8 working days lost per
employee, per annum.
• Beven and Hayday, 2001 calculate that employee
absence costs an organisation between 2 and 16% of
annual salary cost for large UK employers.
• A study by CBI, 2007 estimated the cost employee
absence had on the UK economy in 2006 was a
staggering £13.4 billion. One of the largest figures to
date.
• These credible statistics which have not varied much
over the years indicate that employee absence, if not
handled correctly cost businesses billions nationwide,
every year. It highlights the need to implement sound
and just solutions to tackle
These statistics indicate just how much of an impact attendance
has on a business, thus represent a real need for companies to
implement sound approaches for dealing with employee absence.
Although a certain amount of absence is inevitable, it is possible
to take action to reduce some types of absence, such as time off
for health problems caused by work, or the time taken to return
to work following absence.
Absence
The Punitive approach
The punitive approach to managing employee absence
is seen as a sanctioned based deterrent. Taylor (2002)
indicates that this is the most commonly used
approach. One of the elements of this approach is to
use sick forms and return to work interviews. These
are used in order to decipher whether the employees
were actually sick or whether r they were lying. One
advantage that this approach has is that it acts as a
deterrent. It deters employees from calling in sick in
order to avoid work. However one of the disadvantages
of this method is that it treats all employees in the
same manner. It doesn’t differentiate between the
genuine sick employees and the others
Rewarding Attendance
This method aims to reward the people who have high
attendance with rewards such as extra time off or gifts.
Pell (2001) states that , this policy will help somewhat
but it still Doesn’t cure the underlining problem which is
specific to each and every employee. The advantage of
this method is that it motivates employees to come into
work and therefore have a high attendance figures.
However this methods disadvantage will be evident
because employees who are genuinely sick will start to
come into work in order to still qualify for the rewards.
Yellowley & Farmer (2010) illustrate that British
Nuclear Fuels Ltd offered their members of
staff with full attendance the chance to win a Ford
Focus. This approach allowed the company to save
£110,000 in absence costs
Preventative approach
This approach aims to put off people from taking days of
sick by getting rid of negative aspects and barriers to work
(Yellowley & Farmer 2010). E.g the working hours an
individual has. Amble (2008) states that research carried
out concluded that, flexibility could be linked with a
decrease in sickness absences and work-related
impairment, and improved job commitment. Benefits of
this approach the working environment staff is improved
which will certainly improve the efficiency of the
company. The negative part of this approach is it will
mean that the company may have its costs increased in
order to meet all the individual flexibility needs of each
employee. Ivillage (2003) indicates that, When Boots the
Chemists introduced flexible working, the
number of women returning from maternity leave rose
from 7% to more than 50%. This shows how this method
improves attendance as well as motivation levels.
Company Examples cont…
To manage absence and help combat it, Royal Mail invested £46m in health and wellbeing
activities to improve attendance. These included a £350,000 occupational health and gym
facility at Royal Mail's main London sorting office training for managers to keep in regular
contact with staff who were off sick and better attendance records for managers to discuss
behavior and any patterns with staff. Royal Mail also cut its sickness absence by launching an
incentive scheme for staff in March 2005. It offered employees the chance to win a car in a
prize draw if they had a 100% attendance record. Just one year later, the group had slashed its
absenteeism rates by 1.1% - the equivalent of 1,800 extra people at work per day. This is an
example of the Incentive and prevention approach.
Being one of the leading employers in the North West Vauxhall needed a managing absence
system in place that provided the following:
• a consistent method of capturing employee absence data
• an efficient means of notifying relevant management and HR departments of
employee absence
• an absence recording system that would have to be satisfactorily received, adopted
and utilised by employees, union representatives of T&G and Amicus, and
management alike
They chose a technological based solution called Absencemanager, an intelligent voice-based
software solution that helps to record and manage employee absence information across a
business.
After implementing this Punitive solution, Vauxhall received the following benefits:
• At Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant, Absencemanager has resulted in considerable
time savings for both the supervisors and the HR team
• The system has led to a significantly improved rate for the first day capture of
recorded absence – a rise of 25 per cent, from 70 per cent to 95 per cent
• With employee absence information immediately available at the touch of a button,
plant managers are now able to plan ahead at a much earlier juncture, from both a
resourcing and departmental support perspective
• Depending upon individual circumstances, HR can involve Occupational Health
advisors more quickly and hence see employees return to work sooner
Rolls-Royce implements an effective punitive and prevention based policy including:
• Explanation of the responsibilities of managers, human resources and occupational
health advisors
• Early rehabilitation. Anyone who is absent for 4+ weeks benefits from an action
plan, including physiotherapy services (for both work and non-work related injuries)
• An IT programme that monitors employee absence, records the reasons for the
absence and calculates costs
Business benefits
• A reduction in staff absence from an average of 2.9%(1999) to 2.4%(2002) of the
workforce, saving around £11m
• Average number of days lost per employee per year has fallen to 4.2Consequently,
more staff contribute to Rolls-Royce’s business activities at any one time
• Employees feel managers are positively interested in their prompt return to work
• As employees return to work more quickly, management time spent on each
absence is more effective