Proven Ways to Reduce Absenteeism at Workplace

The productivity of employees is an absolute necessity for the success of an organization and employees’ absence hampers the productivity levels to a great extent. As per the top HR consultants, it is essential for organizations to have clear absence management strategies to streamline employee attendance and reduce absenteeism. Let us discuss a few proven ways suggested by the leading HR management consulting firms to reduce absenteeism and increase the productivity of employees.

• Create an attendance policy: First things first, an attendance policy needs to be created setting the organization’s expectations for attendance and this policy should be communicated to each and every employee at the time of joining and as and when an update is made to the policy. Organizations can hire human resources consultancy firms to draft an attendance policy taking into consideration the needs of the business and government rules and regulations regarding leaves and attendance.
• Implement employee health programs: One of the main reasons for employee absenteeism is employee health. Implementing health and wellness programs will aid reducing health-related absenteeism thereby decreasing employee stress and improving employee morale and productivity.
• Provide paid time-off & flexible working hours: Another major reason for frequent absenteeism among employees is exhaustion because of the long and extending working hours. HR consultants suggest providing paid time-off and vacation days to employees so that they can spend some quality time with family and friends without worrying about their responsibilities and get back to work with rejuvenated energy and freshness. Also, employers can offer flexibility in work timings so that employees can comfortably attend to their personal work and finish their professional commitments without compromising on anyone.
• Enhance morale of employees: According to the human resources consultancy professionals, employees often tend to be absent when they do not like their work, co-workers, or office conditions. So by talking to the employees, organizations can understand the reason behind their absenteeism and take corrective measures to eliminate factors contributing towards absenteeism and boost their morale.
• Reward employees with good attendance: A simple yet sincere way of improving the attendance of employees is rewarding employees who have good attendance. Another way is to incorporate attendance as an element of performance appraisal.

Organizations must note that absenteeism doesn’t affect only revenue but, it affects employee morale as well. When employees of a team absent themselves often, the other team members are burdened with loads of work and it affects their morale and productivity too. So, organizations should minimize their employees’ absenteeism and improve productivity.