How you can deal with absenteeism in the workplace

Millions of dollars are wasted each year due to the overwhelming number of employees that are calling in sick. Absenteeism in the workplace is a growing concern and if you have noticed that you are paying a lot of money for employees to stay at home and be sick or you are losing money in production costs, you need to do something about employee absenteeism.

Discover the problem
What is causing employees to call in sick? Is this a work issue or do you suspect that most of the problems are home-related? Sometimes people are just plain lazy and don't want to come into work on a day when they are scheduled. Work with the employees and get to know their personal attitudes about the working environment and how they feel about their jobs. You can find out that some people have no work ethics and they do not value their jobs. These are the employees that do not offer a lot of value to the company and should be up on your chopping block list.

The other big problem may lie with overall boredom. Some employees might not feel challenged in their jobs and this can cause them to have nothing to do so they call in sick. You have to meet with your employees and go over their various job descriptions in order to find out which ones needs to have more work and which ones need less work because it is causing high levels of stress.

Stress is always a concern and when an employee feels burned out, they will take time off. You need to do all that you can to reduce stress in the workplace or it will infect your entire staff and cause low morale and other concerns.

Personal reasons like sick children are another big cause of absenteeism. This is not a factor you can control and it is one of the only factors that should truly go unpunished for employees that you feel might be abusing the time off policy.

Track the status
How many employees are taking time off? Do you notice that it is happening more with specific employees or when you are experiencing a high volume of sales and other things? You need to know when people are taking time off so you can shift workloads around and keep the company moving forward. Employees that are abusing the time off privileges need to be watched as you may need to reprimand them or let them go based on their time off. Keeping records is a great way to back up your reasons for firing them so you don't need to worry about a lawsuit coming after they are let go.

Have a plan
When employees call in sick, it can be a real problem. You will be short-staffed and it can lead to decreased employee morale. You need to have a plan as to what will happen if a person calls in sick so that everyone else knows what their job duties and responsibilities are. This way one person isn't shouldering the entire workload and one department isn't suffering.Some companies have a policy that the person calling in sick must find another employee to cover their shift or they are still expected to come into the office. Be careful with these policies as they can backfire and you may end up sending the sick employee home anyhow because you are paying them for nothing.

Do your best to keep your staff healthy by encouraging them to participate in a company-wide wellness program. This is a great way to motivate them to lose weight and to eat better. Living healthier will decrease employee absenteeism.