Employers 'failing to grasp extent and cost of staff absences'

Employers could struggle to make improvements to their absence management practices by failing to recognise the true impact that staff sick leave has on their organisation. 

A study by Aon Hewitt has found that many organisations are unaware of how many working hours are lost through staff absences and how much this could be costing their business.

A poll of 185 employers in the UK, representing a combined workforce of 650,000 employees, revealed that 32 per cent of businesses do not know how many days employees are absent through sickness annually, while of those who could give a figure, 60 per cent were not very confident of its accuracy. 

Furthermore, more than half of the respondents said they do not measure the total cost of employee health issues, including absences, while 14 per cent did not know whether their organisations measured costs relating to health. 

James Kenrick, healthcare consultant at Aon Hewitt, said that employers who fail to report on these type of measures are likely to find it hard to improve on the way they handle staff absences. 

"There is a widespread lack of knowledge among the UK's employers about levels of absence through sickness and the wider costs of healthcare. This suggests a lack of focus on absence rates and on health generally," he said. 

"It is clear that there is a need for healthcare measurement and for tangible improvement on the current situation - but without an accurate picture of sickness absence and healthcare costs, employers will struggle to make and measure improvements." 

The survey also suggested that a lack of integration between absence management and healthcare strategies could be compounding the issue. With 13 per cent of those polled revealing that they view the components of their benefits programme completely separately from staff absences, while 36 per cent said they are only loosely related. 

"In our experience, once management is aware of high sickness rates and the corresponding costs, it takes only a modest degree of intervention to bring rates down swiftly," added Mr Kenrick.

An Employee Time and Attendance system is a powerful tool for analysing and managing employee time and attendance.

By recording unplanned absences, holidays and other leave (compassionate, parental etc...), a Time and Attendance system builds a complete Employee Absence Profile which can be viewed on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis. While a Group Absence Profile allows you to analyse absence for a specific team, department or site.

By measuring the work absences of individual employees a Time and Attendance system can identify how these absences impact the organisation’s overall productivity, while real-time colour-coded reporting allows supervisors and managers to quickly identify potential problem areas and plan work schedules according to available resources, skills sets etc…

If you’d like to find out more about how an automated Time and Attendance system can reduce your company’s absence rates and boost productivity contact Mitrefinch Employee Management today on 1300 884 831 (Australia) or 09 363 9557 (NZ).

Our Free Guide to Choosing a Time and Attendance system is also available for download online.