The Melbourne Cup and a mysterious spike in Sick Leave?

Today's Industry Search Bulletin has reported that Victorian employers have raised concerns about the tendency for workers to call in sick today as the Monday before the Melbourne Cup public holiday.

Mysterious spike in Sick Leave this week?

While many employees take a legitimate four-day weekend by applying for leave, many also tend to fake an illness, VECCI workplace relations policy manager Alexandra Marriott said.

"Anecdotally, we see from year to year that there are quite significant unplanned absences or sickies on that day," Marriott said. "It is a difficult problem to address because employers have limited capacity to assess the authenticity of a day of sick leave."

Marriott said it was difficult to put a figure on the costs associated with absenteeism on the day before the Melbourne Cup but said it created reduced productivity and engagement. But taking a four-day weekend using allocated annual leave was good for parts of the economy, particularly tourism, she said.

“Unplanned absenteeism is a major concern for many businesses and employers must consider both the direct and indirect costs incurred when an employee is absent”, said Jamie Fitzsimons, Marketing Manager at Mitrefinch Employee Management.

Direct costs are the benefits paid to the employee to provide income during an absence i.e. Sick, holiday and vacation pay as well as a disability benefit. However the indirect costs associated with unplanned absence are typically ignored or poorly tracked yet they can have a considerable impact to an organisation’s bottom line.

Some indirect costs include;
• A decrease in productivity, resulting in missed business opportunities or reduced customer service
• Fees of the temporary staff required to cover for the absent staff, or overtime costs for other staff covering for their absent colleagues
• Weaken morale of staff forced to cover for absent colleagues, may have a knock-on effect, establishing a culture for “chucking a sickie”

So what can you do to control the impact of absenteeism?

As the old saying goes, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

Organisations need to have an effective means of measuring staff absence in place, enabling them to assess the extent of the issue and decide the best means of tackling the problem.

A Time and Attendance system can monitor and record patterns of absenteeism, sick leave, and productivity, allowing you to establish any regular patterns or sudden unexplained changes.

For example, the Mitrefinch Time and Attendance solution, includes advanced Absence Management functionality allowing employers to profile staff by absence tracking. The system measures how the work absences of individual employees impact your business - by recording the number of absences and the duration of each incidence and providing a ‘score’ for each employee.

With this information readily and quickly available, management can identify workers suspected of abusing sick leave and possible absenteeism trends – allowing them to deal with problem areas before they do any more damage to the organisation’s bottom line.

So if you want to enjoy your Melbourne Cup festivities without having to worry about a loss of productivity for the rest of the week, give us a call today on 1300 884 831 or visit Mitrefinch to find out more about effective Absence Management.

(Sources: “Melbourne Cup holiday sees spike in VIC worker sickies” - http://www.industrysearch.com.au/News/Melbourne-Cup-holiday-sees-spike-in-VIC-worker-sickies-55621)