Managing Absence
Managing staff absence can feel like a never-ending task for many employers and busy HR teams. From chasing return-to-work forms to keeping track of who’s off when, it’s easy to fall into inefficient habits that waste valuable time and increase risk and therefore causing absence management mistakes, costing your business not only time but money.
Managing absence is a crucial aspect of maintaining a healthy and productive workplace. Employers have a responsibility to manage absences effectively, ensuring that they are fair, consistent, and compliant with employment law. This includes having a clear absence management policy in place, providing support for employees with disabilities, and making reasonable adjustments to facilitate their return to work. By understanding the importance of managing absence, employers can reduce the risk of potential discrimination claims, improve employee productivity, and create a positive work environment.
Understanding Employee Absences
Employee absences can be a significant challenge for employers, with sickness absence being a major contributor to lost productivity. It is essential to understand the reasons behind employee absences, including ill health, disability, and other factors. Employers should be aware of their legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and the Employment Rights Act 1996, including the duty to make reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities. By understanding the causes of employee absences, employers can develop effective strategies to manage absence, provide support for employees, and reduce the risk of discrimination claims.
Common Mistakes in Absence Management
Common mistakes in absence management include failing to follow company policies and procedures, making assumptions about an employee’s absence, and failing to provide reasonable adjustments for employees. It is essential to have a clear absence management policy in place, provide training for managers, and ensure that accurate absence records are kept. By avoiding common mistakes, employers can create a fair and consistent approach to absence management, reducing the risk of potential claims and improving employee well-being.
It is essential to ensure that employees are aware of the policy and procedures, and that managers are trained to implement them fairly and consistently. By following a fair procedure, employers can improve employee trust, and create a positive work environment.
Record-Keeping and Accuracy
Accurate record-keeping is essential in managing employee absence, ensuring that employers can track absence patterns, identify potential issues, and provide support for employees. Employers should keep accurate records of employee absences, including the date, duration, and reason for absence. It is also essential to ensure that records are kept confidential and in accordance with data protection laws. By maintaining accurate records, employers can identify potential problems and provide targeted support. Regular reviews of absence records can also help employers to identify trends and patterns, enabling them to develop effective strategies to manage absence and improve employee well-being.
Common Mistakes
At Activ People HR, we’ve seen the same issues crop up time and again. This could be dealing with long term absence, ongoing medical conditions, long term sick leave, to managing employee returns, medical evidence, taking disciplinary action or even seek legal advice. We’ve put together five of the most common absence management mistakes, and how our software helps you avoid them, ensuring your firm is effectively managing employee absence.
Relying on Manual Tracking Systems
The problem:
There are many reasons as to why there’s an absent employee, this could be due to an illness, health condition, legal duty, annual leave and so many more all of which are valid reasons as to why an employee would be off work. However, there are many businesses still using spreadsheets, email threads or paper forms to manage staff absences. These manual systems are error-prone, time-consuming, and often result in miscommunication, ultimately causing more admin work for HR.
The fix:
With Activ People HR, absence records are automatically tracked and centralised. No more double-entry, outdated sheets or missing information, just reliable data in one place.
Inconsistent Return-to-Work Processes
The problem:
Without a standardised return-to-work process, you risk non-compliance, missed conversations, and poor documentation. It also makes it harder to spot repeat absences or patterns. Having a clear policy in the workplace will help ensure your return to work process is carried out as effectively and efficiently as possible.
The fix:
Activ People HR automates return-to-work forms and reminders. Employees are prompted to complete forms digitally on their return, and managers can track completions with full audit trails ensuring consistency every time. It also means that HR managers will no longer have to manually chase forms and minimises incorrect completion of the return to work process.
Lack of Real-Time Visibility
The problem:
If HR or line managers only find out about absences after someone fails to turn up, it’s already too late to manage the impact. Lack of visibility leads to operational disruption and frustrated teams. For example, if you have an important team meeting and a member of staff needs to attend however, 10 minutes before the meeting you learn that the person has booked annual leave and won’t be in the meeting, this will impact that employee when they are back of annual leave as it’s now too late to cancel the meeting.
The fix:
Our live dashboards show you exactly who’s off, when, and why, helping you plan resources, avoid clashes, and stay in control. With outlook and google calendar integration it means you can stay on top of your employee absences, meaning you can effectively manage meetings in advance. With real-time updates you will always be up to date.
No Reporting or Data Analysis
The problem:
Without data, you can’t see the full picture. Trends in sick leave, lateness or unauthorised absence often go unnoticed until they become bigger issues.
The fix:
Activ People HR provides built-in reports and analytics that flag patterns and help you act early. Whether it’s spotting burnout risks or identifying problematic trends, you’ll have the insight to make smarter decisions. With our Bradford Factor scores, clearly view employee unplanned absence levels and trigger notifications when they reach a certain limit. This ensures you stay proactive and prevent further disruptions.
Ineffective Communication with Employees
The problem:
If staff don’t understand the absence process, or have to jump through hoops to book time off then they’re less likely to follow the system, and more likely to disengage.
The fix:
Our self-service tools give employees clear visibility of their leave balances, entitlements and absence history. They can request leave, upload documents and complete return-to-work forms from any device saving your HR team time and improving engagement.
Ready to Fix Your Absence Management?
If you’re making any of these mistakes, you’re not alone. However, they’re easy to fix with the right tools. Activ People HR simplifies absence management for businesses of all sizes, giving you clarity, consistency, and control from day one.
Book a free demo today to see how we can help you save time, reduce admin, and improve employee wellbeing.
