People management and development

1
People management and development

• Managing absence and attendance
• Norma Heaton

2
Managing absence and attendance

• The importance of absence management
• Measuring and benchmarking absence
• Causes of absence
• Absence control and attendance management
  policies
• Implementing an absence management system
• Some legal considerations
• Suggested reading

3
The importance of absence management

• What factors have contributed to the growing
  emphasis on managing sickness and absence?

4
Absence levels in the UK

• Publications and surveys include the annual
  Confederation of British Industry surveys and the
  annual CIPD surveys
• 2006 CIPD data tell us that
• Average level of sickness absence is 3.5 or 8
  working days
• Absence levels have fallen across all sectors
  compared to the previous year apart from private
  services

5
Absence management integral to PD

• Employee resourcing induction, welfare,
  training
• Employee development training for managers
• Employee relations conflict at work, use of
  disciplinary procedures
• Employee reward sick pay, attendance payments

6
Measuring and benchmarking

• Time lost measure (for benchmarking)
• Number of days/shifts lost as a proportion of the
  total number of days/shifts worked
• Frequency of absence (for designing internal
  approaches)
• Bradford factor
• Points scored (SXS) x D
• Snumber of spells of absence over a period
• Dtotal days taken
• Example
• One absence of 5 days (1x1)x55
• Five absences of one day (5x5) x5125

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Costing absence

• Bevan et al (2004) suggest the following costs
  arise
• Direct financial costs salary, benefits,
  overtime costs, temporary cover
• Indirect costs reduced services and quality
• Indirect cost on management time
• Indirect cost on HR time
• Negative impact on employee motivation

8
Benchmarking data

• CIPD (2006) survey provides benchmarking data
  broken down by
• Sector
• Workforce size
• Region
• Duration x workforce size
• Duration by sector
• Points to note
• The survey covers 1083 organisations but
  represents a 9.5 response rate
• Regional data may be very volatile

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Questions to consider

• What is the current absence rate in your
  organisation?
• What methods are used to collect the data?
• How reliable is the data?

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Why look at causes of absence?

• Respondents in CIPD survey felt on average 15 of
  absence was not genuine
• 67 of respondents felt that a reduction in
  absence was due to tightening of policies for
  reviewing attendance
• 42 of respondents had a target for reducing
  absence

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Causes of absence

• Single factor explanations
• Pain avoidance
• Job dissatisfaction, marked by frequency of
  absence
• Adjustment to work
• Adopting absence norms or values
• intrinsic or extrinsic reward falling short
  of expectations
• Economic decision making
• Rational decisions on cost and benefits
  associated with absence
• Source Evans and Walters (2002)

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Multiple factor causes of absence (1)

• Personal factors
• Length of service
• Age
• Gender
• Personality
• Employee attitudes
• Past absence behaviour

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Multiple factor causes of absence (2)

• The organisational context
• Work design
• Other job related factors
• Stress
• Frequency of job moves
• Leadership style
• Organisation and work group size
• Work group norms and cultures
• Organisational practices and policies

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Multiple factor causes of absence (3)

• External factors
• Economic and market conditions
• Unemployment and state of the job market
• Travel and transport problems
• Family responsibilities
• Dependent children
• Eldercare
• Source Warr and Yearta (1995)

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What do managers think are the causes of absence?
(Taylor, 2005)

• As recorded on certification forms
• Colds and flu
• Stomach upsets
• Headaches and migraines
• Back problems
• Stress and personal issues

• In managers opinions
• Colds and flu
• Stress and personal problems
• Sickness of other family members
• Low morale/boring job
• Monday morning blues

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Diagnostic model of employee attendance (Rhodes
and Steers,1990)

• Attendance barriers
• - illness and accidents
• - family responsibilities
• - transportation problems
• ?
• Organisational ? ? Perceived ability to attend
• Practices
• ? ?
• Absence culture ?? Attendance ?? Attendance
• ? motivation
• Employee attitudes,
• Values and goals

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Absence control and attendance management policies

• Advantages of an absence control policy
• Increased productivity
• Consistency in dealing with absence problems
• Less resentment among colleagues
• Measures to control absence
• Policies to manage and discourage absence
• Policies which positively encourage attendance
• Source Evans and Walters (2002)

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Policies to manage and discourage absence (1)

• Absence strategies, policies and targets
• Enhancing the role of the line manager, which may
  include
• Keeping attendance records
• Ensuring employees are aware of absence policy
• Implementing various stages of absence management
  programmes
• Monitoring sick employees
• Carrying out return-to-work interviews

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Policies to manage and discourage absence (2)

• Involving employees and trade unions
• Establishing trigger points
• Absence review and counselling meetings
• Disciplinary procedures
• Using absence as a criterion for redundancy
  selection

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Policies to encourage attendance

• Attendance incentives which may include
• Attendance bonuses
• Lotteries
• Adjustments to profit-sharing
• Group-based approaches
• Pre-employment screening
• Flexible working arrangements
• Occupational health programmes and absence
  counselling

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Tools for managing short term absence (CIPD,
2005)

• Most effective
• Return-to-work interviews
• Use of trigger mechanisms
• Use of disciplinary procedures
• Restricting sick pay
• Line manager involvement
• Providing sickness absence information to line
  managers

• Most used
• Return to work interviews
• Disciplinary procedures
• Providing sickness absence information to line
  managers
• Trigger mechanisms
• Leave for family circumstances
• Line manager involvement

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Tools for managing long-term absence (CIPD, 2005)

• Most effective
• Occupational health involvement
• Rehabilitation programmes
• Change to working patterns
• Return to work interviews
• Flexible working

• Most used
• Return to work interviews
• Providing sickness absence information to line
  managers
• Occupational health involvement
• Risk assessment to aid return to work

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Implementing an absence management system (Evans
and Walters, 2002)

• Absence policies and procedures with the
  following elements
• Clear statement of standards of attendance
  required
• Management commitment to absence policies and
  standards
• Systematic procedures for managing general
  absence
• Systematic procedures for investigating and
  managing problem absence

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Implementing an absence management system (2)

• Organisation wide initiatives and provisions
• Communication
• Recruitment, selection and induction
• Performance management, reward and incentives
• Work organisation and job design
• Flexible employment policies
• Occupational health initiatives

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Employee well-being

• What elements would you include in a programme to
  promote employee well-being?
• What obstacles might be encountered in
  introducing an employee well-being programme?

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Some legal considerations (1) (Harris,2003)

• Individual employment rights
• Time off provisions
• Equal Treatment legislation
• Information rights
• Contractual rights
• LRA/ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and
  Grievance Procedures

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Some legal considerations (2)

• General principles for fair procedures
• Proper investigation of employees record
• Regular contact and consultation with the
  employee
• Inform the employee if employment is at risk
• Obtaining medical evidence
• Determining whether the employee is disabled
  within the meaning of the DDA
• Possibility of alternative work

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Suggested further reading

• Dunn and Wilkinson (2002)
• Examine practices in seven companies from three
  sectors
• Find movement towards a more health-conscious
  culture
• McHugh (2002)
• Investigated causes and effects of employee
  absence in local government in Northern Ireland
• Findings revealed high absence levels tended to
  coexist with low morale and high levels of stress
• Concluded that organisations tended to deal with
  symptoms rather than underlying causes

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Suggested further reading (2)

• James, Cunningham and Dibben (2002)
• Focus on long-term absence
• Advocate a more proactive approach to supporting
  the return of ill and injured workers
• Bevan et al (2004)
• Investigated how employers manage the
  consequences of different types of absence
• Examined costs of absence

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References

• Bevan,S. et al (2004) How employers manage
  absence. Employment Relations Series No 25. DTI,
  London
• CIPD (2006) Absence management annual survey
  report 2006. CIPD, London
• Evans,A. and Walters,M. (2002) From absence to
  attendance. Industrial Society, London
• Harris,L. (2003) Managing sickness and absence
  in Towers,B. (ed) The handbook of employment
  relations. Kogan Page, London

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References ctd

• Rhodes,S. and Steers,R. (1990) Managing employee
  absenteeism. Addison Wesley, Reading Mass.
• Taylor,S. (2005) People Resourcing. CIPD, London
• Warr,P. and Yearta,S. (1995) Health and
  motivational factors on sickness absence Human
  Resource Management Journal, Vol 5 No 5, pp33-48

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Further reading

• Dunn,C. and Wilkinson,A. (2002) Wish you were
  here managing absence. Personnel Review, Vol
  31, No 2, pp228-246
• James,P., Cunningham,I. and Dibben,P. (2002)
  Absence management and the issues of job
  retention and return to work Human Resource
  Management Journal, Vol 12, No 2, pp82-94
• McHugh,M. (2002) The absence bug a treatable
  viral infection? Vol 17, No 7/8, pp722-738