Dealing with Excessive Employee Absences

Employee absenteeism has always been a problem for small businesses, but since the COVID era, it has gotten worse and is having major impacts on productivity, morale and profits. Excessive absenteeism can be difficult to address if it becomes habit, or seeps into your culture. Employees that have good attendance may begin to become bitter and overall morale may suffer.

In CA law, employees are free to use their available sick time for health-related issues for themselves or their family members, (as well as domestic violence or sexual assault issues). It’s important to know that while they are using paid time off under the sick time law, they are protected from discipline or retaliation. Once they have exceeded their paid sick time accrual (3 days or 24 hours annually), they are no longer protected by the law from attendance problems.

Absenteeism Rate
Absenteeism can be calculated to determine an average rate, and an ideal rate for your workplace.
You can calculate this rate by dividing the number of days off by the number of available workdays within a given period:

3 days absence / 250 workdays in a year = 1.2%

A healthy absenteeism rate would be between 1.5% and 2.0%. Your ideal rate for your workplace may differ and can also be calculated by the impact on the team or the company production levels.

How to deal with excessive absenteeism in the workplace
Create an employee attendance policy. The first step in learning how to handle employee absenteeism is to create an official employee attendance policy. Be clear in your policy that optimum workplace attendance means – list number of available paid days off, show up on time, notify management as soon as you know you’ll be out and be sensitive to your team. Your policy should also describe how absenteeism affects the whole team and the company.

When you have a problem
Talk with the Employee About the Problem. Once you are aware there is an issue with excessive employee attendance, it’s time to first talk with the employee. Don’t wait too long, the first signs should be very apparent, any unexcused absences more the healthy rate described above per year can be considered excessive if there are no obvious issues you are aware of. Ask the employee whether or not the company can do anything to accommodate their issues but be aware of privacy issues here.

This first verbal meeting does not have to be disciplinary, it can lean more towards discovery and counseling. Be prepared to explain how time off hurts the business and affects other employees and make the employee aware of attendance standards going forward.

Dealing with Accommodation Issues
In CA it is important to identify whether there are any issues that may require reasonable accommodation. If you have identified any personal or medical issues, you must enter into an interactive dialogue with the employee. Perhaps flexible hours, specific time or partial days off periodically, or something else may be considered within reason. This conversation is designed to determine whether or not the company can handle the accommodation the employee might need. Be sure to document this process and follow-up with the employee.

Plan of Action
Assuming there are no accommodation issues, remind the employee of your company policy and be sure they leave the meeting with a specific plan of action to correct their attendance problems and that they know exactly what’s expected of them.

Monitor and Act When Necessary
Monitor the employee from this point forward, and if there are any unexplained absences or excessive days off in the next 30-60 day period, you may need to formally discipline the employee and document the meeting. Make sure at that point, there are clear consequences for further absences beyond what is normal.

If absences continue, it may be time to consider other actions such as disciplinary warnings or termination. Employees that don’t respect workplace attendance will likely wind up causing additional problems if this problem is not corrected.

Conclusion
Dealing with employees and absenteeism is trickier than it used to be but if you are consistent and live by your company’s policy, you’ll be able to make decisions quickly that will correct issues or eliminate the attendance problem as quickly as possible. Make sure you are consistent with all employees in how you respond to absenteeism.

If you have any questions on this issue or any other HR problem, please contact the experts at Infinium HR at info@infiniumgroup.com.