With cold and flu season underway, is your business prepared for Winter Absenteeism?

With the arrival of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere, have you noticed an increase in the number of employees calling in sick?

Safeguard your business against Winter Absence

While we generally don’t get the sub zero temperatures experienced by our counterparts in the US and Europe, I'm sure i'm not the only one tempted to hit the snooze button and hide under the doona on these chilly mornings!

However, in addition to "illegimate sickies", the cooler weather also brings an increase in cases of genuine sickness, like colds and flus, which can directly impact a company’s bottom line.

According to research compiled by Kimberly-Clark Professional:

• It is estimated that the flu impairs a workers performance by between 20 and 40%
• On average 6.5 working days of productivity are lost per employee annually
• 10% of all illness related absenteeism is due to the flu

This unplanned absenteeism and drop in productivity, is a major concern for many organisations and employers must consider both the direct and indirect costs incurred when an employee is absent.

Organisations need to be proactive and plan in advance to safeguard their business from the effects of Winter Absenteeism.

Steps you can take to combat Winter Absence

If you can’t measure it, it’s pretty hard to manage it – as a first step, businesses need to establish an effective means of measuring and monitoring employee absence.

By effectively measuring absence and sickness in the workplace management can easily identify:

• How often a worker is absent
• How much working time has been lost
• If there is any particular pattern forming (i.e. a particular worker regularly calls in sick on a Friday morning)
• and Where absenteeism occurs the most (i.e. within a particular department, team)

Armed with this valuable information, management can assess the extent of their absenteeism issues and decide on the best means of tackling the problem.

How might an automated Time and Attendance System help?

A Time and Attendance system is a powerful Workforce Management tool for analysing employee attendance information and the associated costs.

By recording unplanned absences, holidays and paid parental leave, an automated Time and Attendance system provides you with a complete AbsenceProfile for an individual employee or group of employees for further analysis.

In addition, by measuring work absences an automated Time and Attendancesystem can identify how these absences impact the organisation's overall productivity, as well as identifying potential problem areas – allowing management to address any issues before they get out of hand.

In-built employee scheduling and rostering capabilities also enable management to plan projected manpower and work schedules according to available resources, skills sets etc...

For more information please feel free to call 1300 884 831 (+61 2 8762 7888 outside Australia), email sales@mitrefinch.com.au or visit us online.

Also see: Safeguard your organisation from Absenteeism Spike via the Australian Payroll Association website

Technology innovations facilitating flexible working practices

New technology and communication devices are making flexible and mobile working practices more and more commonplace. 

According to a recent study by Siemens Enterprise Communications, 85 per cent of communication devices used for team collaboration, including smart phones, laptops and mobile phones, are located outside the company headquarters. 

Siemens believe that this trend could result in the 'anywhere employee' - who can use modern technology to work from multiple locations - replacing the traditional office-based worker. 

The communications company says that in the past, staff would have had difficulty managing different platforms - such as email, mobile, landline and social media - outside of the office, whereas modern flexible and collaborative tools now mean this can be done seamlessly and irrespective of location. 

The increasing adoption of cloud computing is also helping organisations to enable remote working, said the study – with 40 per cent of the businesses surveyed intending to deploy some form of cloud computing in the next year.

"The rise of the anywhere employee has meant the end of the office worker," said Rob Keenan, head of UK portfolio management, deployment readiness management at Siemens Enterprise Communications. 

"Business tools, such as unified communications, are reshaping the way organisations collaborate and are helping deliver on the previously-too-difficult promise of enhanced communication. More than ever, work isn't where you go, it's what you do." 

Providing employees with the means to work flexibly can prove a useful absence management tool for employers, allowing staff to work from home or elsewhere should they be unable to make it into the office. 

A web-based time and attendance system would also provide employers with the capability to effectively manage and track their mobile workforce, regardless of their location.

With a web-based time and attendance system, staff can remotely clock in and out of tasks, appointments and projects via desktop PCs, laptops, notebooks and the latest communications devices and smart phones. They can also view their holiday entitlements, apply for leave, and request updates to their personal records without having to converse with HR staff. 

A web-based time and attendance system also facilitates real-time project tracking, providing accurate analysis of employee activity anytime, anywhere – increasing efficiency and ensuring that labour-related costs are genuine. 

For more information on how a web-based time and attendance system could help you embrace mobile/remote working contact Mitrefinch today on 1300 884 831 (+61 2 8762 7888) or visit www.mitrefinch.com.au

Fair Work Australia announce Annual Wage Review decision - what does it mean for your business?

The national minimum wage for Australia's 1.4 million lowest paid workers should be raised by $17.10 a week, Fair Work Australia has said.

Under the review, the adult National Minimum Wage will increase by 2.9% ($17.10) to $606.40 per week and to $15.96 per hour (equating to a rise of $0.45 per hour). 

So what does this mean for your business? 

The NSW Business Chamber have summarised the main points for us as follows: 

• All Modern Award rates of pay are increased by 2.9% effective from the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2012.  
• This increase can be absorbed into any existing over award payments. You will need to check the absorption clause in your Modern Awards.  
• If you are transitioning rates of pay to the Modern Award, an employee’s new minimum rate is his/her new Modern Award rate plus or minus 40% of the transitional amount.  
• For award free casual employees – the default casual loading has increased from 22% to 23% effective from the first full pay period commencing on or after 1 July 2012. 

For full details of the Annual Wage Review Decision see the Fair Work Australia website: http://www.fwa.gov.au/sites/wagereview2012/decisions/2012fwafb5000.pdf 

Do you find it difficult to comply with Modern Awards and related changes? 

Ensuring you are compliant with penalty rates and modern awards can represent a major headache for many organisations, particularly those that operate nationally. 

An electronic Time and Attendance system takes the stress out of Award Interpretation and safeguards your organisation from potential legal action, by automating compliance with workplace legislation and your business’ work rules. 

A Time and Attendance system allows you to quickly and easily modify base and overtime pay rates, weekend and public holiday penalties, leave loading and shift penalties, as well as Modern Award rates as needed. 

To find out more about effective Award Interpretation contact Mitrefinch today on 1300 884 831 (+61 2 8762 7888 if outside Australia) or sales@mitrefinch.com.au

Do falling staff sickness levels signal rise in presenteeism?

In the UK, employees are now taking fewer sick days off work than at any time since records began, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed.

However, while absenteeism rates appear to be falling, experts have warned that this could be creating another workforce management problem for employers - a rise in presenteeism – where staff come in to work even when they in ill health, which can ultimately affect their own and their organisation's performance. 

In Australia, the latest estimates put the price of absenteeism at $6bn annually, while the cost of presenteeism could be as high as $34bn, according to a new report by Medibank.

"Sickness absence is in the spotlight because it is something management can measure, putting individual managers under pressure to reduce the level of absenteeism among staff - but it leads to increased presenteeism, especially during a recession," Ksenia Zheltoukhova, a spokesperson for the Work Foundation, told the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

“Employers have the ability to reduce presenteeism rates, thereby improving productivity and, in the long-term, generate a positive impact on their business bottom line,” Dr Matthew Cullen from Medibank Health Solutions said. 

As such, to minimise negative effects to businesses, employers should take steps to make staff feel comfortable about taking time off when they are ill as part of their absence management strategies.

Medibank advise that investments need to be made in the health of staff, so that employers can reduce presenteeism rates, productivity and, in the long term, generate an overall positive impact on business.

For more info see “Time to get serious about presenteeism, it’s costing you $34bn” on HC Online.

Mitrefinch are Auckland bound for the NZPPA Payroll Expo

Are you a New Zealand based Payroll Professional? or do you need to process pay for NZ staff from your Australian office?

If so, mark Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd June in your diary for the New Zealand Payroll Practitioners' Association (NZPPA) Annual Conference and Payroll Expo at the Crowne Plaza in Auckland!

Now in its fifth year, the NZPPA Conference is the largest payroll event in New Zealand, and Mitrefinch are once again delighted to be involved as a corporate sponsor.

The theme of this year's event will resonate with many a Payroll Professional - “Become a Payroll Whiz – Calculations, Calculations, Calculations" and will focus on all things calculations related to help ensure payroll is compliant - from the Holidays Act, Parental Leave, KiwiSaver, Superannuation, Salary Packaging, Extra Pays, ACC, and Payroll Giving, to understanding Taxable and Non-Taxable allowances. 

Determined not to be a talkfest, the NZPPA also aims to make the conference as interactive as possible over both days - with round table discussion, multi stream workshops, and real-world case studies from payroll practitioners making up a large part of the programme. 

The Payroll Expo will run in conjunction with the conference, allowing attendees to meet with vendors and learn more about the latest developments in payroll technology and available services. 

The Mitrefinch team will be on hand to demonstrate our Workforce Management solutions and data capture options for effective time and attendance management of all staff, whether they are on the factory floor, at a remote site or working from home - so drop by Booth 11 to find out more!

To register or to find out more about the NZPPA Annual Conference and Payroll Expo visit www.nzppa.co.nz 

Alternatively contact Mitrefinch directly on +64 9 363 9557 or marketing@mitrefinch.co.nz if you would like to attend the NZPPA Conference at the discounted NZPPA member rate!