The cost of absence
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) recently published its annual survey —Absence and Labour Turnover 2003: The Lost Billions: Addressing the Cast of Absence. The research reveals that in 2002, £11 .6bn was paid to cover the salaries of absent individuals and resulting overtime and temporary cover For most employers, absence costs between one and five per cent of the overall payroll bill.

While the figures seem extensive, they are actually an improvement an the previous year. In 2001, the amount of working days lost fell by 5.7% from 176m lost in 2001, to 1 66m in 2002.

Absence within the UK workforce is at its lowest for 15 years, but the cost is still going up. The most likely reason for this is the rising price of labour.

Rates of absence are affected by a number of different variables. The public sector experiences higher rates of absenteeism than the private sector Data collected from Employee Absence 2003: A Survey of Management Policy and Practice, conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), reveals that public sector workers take an average of 10.5 sick days per year, compared with seven days a year for those in the private sector.

Absence also varies from sector to sector, due to differences in the nature of work and the composition of the workplace. The highest rates are in local government and the NHS. In the consultancy, IT, legal and media sectors, the rate of absence is barely more than half the national average. And larger organisations are likely to experience higher rates than small companies.
The CBI’s figures reveal that short-term absence is responsible for 95% of the total amount of absence, and makes up 69% of working time lost. However, while 5% of absence is long-term, it accounts for 31% of days lost. “While it is very important for companies to deal with casual, non-genuine absence,” says Glare Hinkley, policy advisor at the CBI, “long-term absence must ako be addressed, because of its cost, both in terms of time and money.

The CBI’s research revealed that 15% of absence is not genuine. Genuine sickness absence may be a fact of life, but pulling sickies can, and should, be rectified by businesses.

Causes
Some employees have got into the rnindset of taking unauthorised days off, and considering the allotted sickness absence limits their employer sets to be a valid entitlement to take time off. This may be fuelled by a culture of absenteeism from management, which will reflect on employees.

Stephen Evans, deputy director of research at the Work Foundation, cci’s this the “leniency effect”. He says: “If employees perceive management to be indifferent to, or tolerant of, absence, then absence increases.”

There area variety of reasons employees take time off when they are not ill. The most popular reason cited by respondents to the CIPD’s survey is hangover, followed by hot weather, the individual’s birthday and spending time with a loved one. During the recent heat wave in the UK, law firm Peninsula, which runs an employment law help line, noted a rise of 42% in cd’s from managers concerned that employees were taking unauthorised time off because of the hot weather.

The CIPD’s survey reveals that the recent economic downturn has also contributed to a 10% faIl in absence in the last year. However, the effect of job insecurity on absence levels is complicated. When employees feel insecure they may be less inclined to take unauthorised time oft, for fear of being mode redundant because of their absence record. Mike Emmett, head of employee relations at the CIPD, says: “Employees may want to be in work so they con take evasive action if the axe foils.”
However, the threat of redundancy con also lead to people taking days off because they are despondent about their job, or are looking for a new one.

The full picture
There are a number of measures employers can take to reduce absence level’s.

One big problem is that many organisations do not know how much sickness absence is costhg them. Businesses must get the full picture by sizing up their absence levels. This needs to be done by establishing the cause, frequency and cost, and auditing data such as medical insurance claims, employers’ liability clauses and lost business opportunities.

“The first thing on organization must do to manage down unauthorised absence, is to monitor the problem to understand precisely how bad it really is, followed by analysis of the information to see what trends are emerging,” says Keith Statham, managing director of Kronos.

Trends such as working practices, times of opening and commercial deadlines, con oil play a part in employees taking time off.

Seventy-eight per cent of respondents to the CIPD’s survey soy that tightening their absence management policies has lead to a decrease in absenteeism. “Keeping a record of who is absent and why is crucial,” says Paul Roberts, healthcare consultant at employee wellbeing specialists IHC. “Monitoring these trends allows the business to amend its policies where appropriate.”

Also according to the CIPD’s data, the most popular method of absence management is the introduction or revision of monitoring procedures. Nearly one-quarter of the CIPD% respondents hove introduced the Bradford Factor system, or similar, which oiiows the disruptive effect of absence to be assessed, by measuring the irregularity of an employee’s attendance. Evans says: “As soon as organisations start measuring absence, absence levels go down.”

Research from Crown Computing reveals that nearly half the employees questioned would be less likely to take unauthorised time off if their boss was tracking their absence levels. Mike Hawkesford, managing director of Crown Computing, says: “While keeping on eye on absences can help identify trends and patterns, developing an understanding that businesses have a problem is not good enough — they need to manage absence as and when it happens.”

Handing over responsibility
Those businesses which hove passed control 0f absenteeism to senior management have noted a reduction in the amount of employees taking casual days off. “The biggest single influence on absence levels is management action,” says Emmolt. “Managers have a significant role to pioy as the corporate custodians of people performance,” adds - Christine Owen, head of health management consulting at Mercer HR Consulting.

However, tackling absence must be seen as a team effort, and the relevant parties — including line managers — should make the process part of the normal routine.

Good communication is essential. Any information companies hold on employees’ absence must be dealt with rapidly and positively. Challenging reasons for absence will only foster negative responses from employees. Dr Bill McCulloch, group director of health and safety at Vodaphone, says: “All absence should be treated as genuine: don’t look for conflict or cause problems.”

HR departments should be instrumental in distributing and discussing absence figures, as well as raising the profile of absenteeism throughout the organisation. Roberts adds: “HR professionals should consider running ‘league tables’ so that peer pressure helps to bring control and management focus to the issue.”

The return-to-work interview
The most effective tool for dealing with absence management that employers named in both the CBI and CIPO surveys, is the return-to-work interview. Many employees would not take casual absence if they knew that on their return to work they would have a discussion with their line manager about it.
Evans says: “The return-to-work interview provides reassurance to those who have been ill off work because they know their absence has been noticed and their employer is aware of the situation. They also succeed in scaring the pants off people who have been taking days off when they aren’t sick.”
However, return-to-work interviews and giving control of absence monitoring to senior management does not necessarily tackle the main causes of absenteeism. Respondents to the CIPO’s survey revealed decreases in absenteeism may be attributed to changes in the organisation of work — such as shift patterns, flexibility and self-managed teams, changes in workplace composition and changes to workload.

Flexible working
A third of respondents questioned by Crown Computing said they would be less likely to take unauthorised time oft work if they were offered more flexible working opportunities.

Investors in People has recently launched its Work-life Balance Model which should improve absence rates by putting proper flexible working practices in place. The model has been developed with contributions from the Department of Trade and Industry, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the CBI and Employers for Work Life Balance. The companies already using this model have noted a decrease in absence management.

A clear policy
“The CBI encourages companies to use the best practice, which they can outline from the results of our survey, to benchmark against other businesses of the same size and within the same sector,” says Hinkley. “Once they have done this, organisations should be able to take action to develop an absence management policy.”

Having a clear policy of absence management is essential — one which is not open to varying interpretation. It should be clear who does what, when, what the boundaries are, and should realise the variety of causes of absence, and implement solutions targeted at specific individuals and organisational practice. Employees need to know what support is available and how to access it. “Good employers will reach an agreement with their workforce about procedures for handling absence,” says Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC.