Absenteeism causes high losses to the companies
What we absenteeism at the workplace is the absence or leaving the job in hours corresponding to a working day, within the legal working hours.This is ultimately one of the problems of most concern to enterprises because the organizational problems and high costs generated.
Absenteeism has a material effect on the bottom line of most companies, yet few managers really understand the magnitude of the problem at their company. According to statistical data collected in the U.S. the unscheduled absenteeism rate as absenteeism, sickness, accident or temporary disability, hourly workforce is approximately 9% in 2010 (CIRCADIAN’s Shiftwork Practices 2010). That means that almost one in ten workers is absent when he or she should be at work. There are considerable direct and indirect costs in all absence types that cause disruption to the business, make it difficult to deploy the workforce, and have a deep effect on productivity, profit margins, and employee morale.
For a manager to comprehend the potential costs of absenteeism to the company, we can calculate the direct costs to the employer. To make it easy, according to the data, in a total of 2.917.200 public employees followed in Spain, 63.100 did not attend each week to work for temporary disability. For the private sector, if the number of employees amounts to 11.693.100, around 248.900 stayed home sick leave. In the average hourly workplace, typical unscheduled absenteeism rates in the U.S. range from 5% to 10% (i.e. at any given time 5% to 10% of the workforce is missing from work).
These figures are shocking today, but it is also true that with the economic crisis absenteeism has decreased. It seems that seeing endanger the workplace makes us less sick or is the best medicine to heal many of the “overpretexting” who were a few years ago.
We can find different types of absenteeism in the workplace, we can summarize them in three:
- Absenteeism predictable and justified: the one that can be controlled because the worker reported prior to the company (legal permits paid, sick leave with common diseases, accidents
with sick leave, etc.).
- Absenteeism unpredictable and without justification is when you leave the workplace without authorization from the company.
- Absenteeism in person: when the employee comes to his/her job, but most of time is devoted to tasks that are not specific to the work activity. This is the most dangerous of all, because it’s so difficult to detect and intercept. Many companies require their workers a physical presence in his job for 8 hours a day but do not control if those eight hours are real and productive, meaning that the worker may be physically sitting in his job as his mind or spirit is thousands of miles, for example, surfing the Internet or just solving other personal issues that are of most interest to the worker.
Dealing absenteeism in the workplace involves analyzing many factors: employee motivation, interpersonal relationships, the company’s strategic plan, goals, etc. And to do all this is not easy. If we consider that work motivation is the key, and this is due to intrinsic and/or extrinsic, then we must ask what is it that really motivates our employees, instead of giving orders task haphazardly. In addition, there is evidence that employees with good or very good morale miss less work than employees with fair or poor morale and that high morale translates into higher levels of productivity, reduced absenteeism and a greater commitment to the organization.
One of the keys to motivation among employees is to make the company feel like yours and live as such, both successes and failures. Every employee should feel an important and necessary part of the machinery gear without which the company operates. Only then each takes the work to be performed. All are important and absolutely necessary, should have a sense of team and be stronger. And following the simile, like all machinery must be lubricated occasionally pieces to promote the operation, that is needed to encourage or motivate workers to get reach the target.
Incentives do not have to be money, it does not take a psychologist to know that money is one of the worst motivators because the resulting positive impact remains very little over time. In many cases the simple recognition of our work, the power to reach goals and objectives or get love relationships with those around us it’s enough to encourage us to continue the right progress.If employees do not find their job challenging, dissatisfaction creeps in.
Workplace culture also has an influence on employees’ understanding of what is and is not acceptable behavior. Clear attendance expectations and positive reinforcement are essential elements in reducing absenteeism.
Partially adapted from http://agalamartin1.blogspot.com.es and Workforce Institute http://www.workforceinstitute.org/. Picture from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/photos/absenteeism-629.jpg.
