A modern guide to reducing absenteeism

Whether they’re sick, struggling with stress, or dealing with a personal emergency, employees sometimes need to take unexpected time off.

However, navigating absences can be tricky for HR professionals and managers. Unplanned leave can disrupt workflows, strain teams, and be very expensive — costing employers in the US alone billions a year.

‍Absenteeism is also on the rise. The CIPD reported the average absenteeism rate reached a decade-high in 2023, with 7.8 days per employee per year — a significant increase from 5.8 days per employee in 2019.* This suggests that businesses have some work to do to deal with the root causes of unplanned leave and minimize the strain on HR and People teams.

So, what can employers do to reduce absenteeism across their organizations? Let’s get to the bottom of it.

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*CIPD, 2023

What’s considered absenteeism & why is it so crucial for HR teams in 2024?

There are many reasons why an employee might not be able to come to work. More often than not, it’s due to a holiday, an appointment, or another kind of commitment that’s been arranged and approved in advance. However, when we refer to absenteeism, we’re talking about the unscheduled, unpredictable leave that happens in organizations of all sizes and sectors.

This could include short-term absence in the event of:

• Minor illness or injury
• Immediate emergencies
• Sudden family issues (like childcare or elder care)
• Jury duty
• Transportation issues
• Weather-related issues
• Bereavement leave
• Workplace accidents

In addition, longer-term absences might be caused by:

• Prolonged physical or mental illness
• Complex personal emergencies
• Job abandonment (when an employee leaves their job without notice and with no intention of returning)

These scenarios are more common than you might think, and investing in better HR processes can minimize some of these issues. 

Addressing absenteeism is critical, as it directly impacts business operations and employee well-being. The costs of unplanned absenteeism:

• US$4,080 annually per full-time employee
• US$2,040 annually per part-time employee

These figures reflect lost productivity, strained morale, increased healthcare spending, replacement cover expenses, and extra administrative costs.
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How does presenteeism fit into the picture?

Presenteeism occurs when employees are physically at work but unproductive due to illness, stress, or other personal challenges. Like absenteeism, presenteeism reduces productivity and may lead to burnout. 

Factors contributing to presenteeism include: 

• Toxic workplace culture
• Fear of being perceived as underperforming
• Lack of available cover for responsibilities.

Professionals experiencing presenteeism lose an average of 2.6 productive hours daily — meaning they don’t work as productively and put themselves at risk of burning out.

Considering all of the above, reducing absenteeism and presenteeism should be a C-suite concern for all organizations that want to improve their approach to People management and foster a healthy company culture.
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6 steps to reduce absenteeism within your organization

Employees should be able to take time away from work to deal with matters that are important to them. But to ensure these situations don’t negatively impact internal operations and the rest of the team, it’s crucial to have an effective absence management system in place. 

Here are six steps to reduce absenteeism and improve employee engagement:

1. Review, analyze, and improve your absence management strategy

A robust absence management system is essential for tracking, understanding, and mitigating absenteeism. To be effective, it should be clear, user-friendly, and capable of identifying trends.

Consider whether your current approach includes:

• Employee self-service capabilities — Allow team members to request leave, submit documentation, and view PTO entitlements with minimal HR involvement.

• Automated leave calculations —  Ensure entitlements align with company policies and local regulations.

• Absence reporting and analytics — HR teams should be able to easily spot patterns, analyze trends, and track the impact that absenteeism has on productivity and employee well-being.

• Payroll integration — Your absence management system should ideally link with your payroll process so you can easily make salary adjustments when necessary (for example, in cases of overtime or unpaid leave).

• Flexible policy management — People teams should be able to customize absence management rules to suit different situations, such as regulations for full-time and part-time workers.

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💡 Data-driven absence management helps identify common leave types, enabling more informed policy adjustments. 

As an example of new policies being currently implemented by companies worldwide, 19% of CIPD survey respondents plan to introduce a menstrual health leave policy in the future.

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2. Invest in employee engagement and empowerment initiatives

A recent Gallup study found that businesses with highly engaged team members experience a 78% decrease in absenteeism — plus a 23% increase in profitability and a 70% increase in employee well-being. So, it’s clear that investing in engagement could positively impact your people and your organization.

Fortunately, high-performing HR platforms can help you enhance and manage your engagement initiatives. Among many other features, Leapsome’s AI-powered HR platform helps People professionals implement employee engagement ideas with powerful, people-centered features.

For example:

• Our Surveys module allows you to easily collect your team’s feedback to measure engagement levels and the pulse of your company culture. Leapsome’s AI can analyze responses and propose tailored courses of action.
  
  
• With the Goals tool, you can use flexible goal frameworks to track employee progress, nurture high performance, and make objective-setting more meaningful, aligned, and efficient.
  
  
• Learning enables L&D professionals and managers to create custom learning paths and access ready-to-use training materials.
  
  
• Compensation standardizes compensation processes, helps create fair compensation frameworks, and manages compensation reviews.
  
  
• Instant Feedback helps promote a culture of continuous development and encourages public praise to improve morale — as well as structured feedback requests.

These tools help create a positive workplace where employees feel valued and supported, reducing the likelihood of unplanned absences.
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3. Check in with team members regularly

Encouraging managers to schedule regular 1:1s with their reports should be standard for any business. However, this practice is non-negotiable if you’re serious about reducing absenteeism as it helps maintain healthy communication patterns and address the root causes of unplanned leave.

It’s crucial to check in with any team member who’s displaying concerning absence behavior, as it could be a sign that they’re struggling with their workload or feeling burnt out. Additionally, managers should consider scheduling a catch-up with any report who’s returning from a longer absence. In these meetings, leaders should aim to:

• Clarify expectations, establish priorities, and ensure they’re up to date with ongoing projects.
• Address any underlying issues that might have led to the prolonged absence.
• Show support for the individual by offering concessions such as flexible work hours, floating holidays, or access to an employee assistance program (EAP) to ensure a smooth transition back to work.

👀 Want to run more effective, impactful meetings? Download our free 1:1 meetings template so you can plan your conversations effectively, ensure you don’t miss any key points of discussion, and feel confident going into your check-ins.

4. Offer generous PTO and well-being days (no questions asked) 

Stressed, overworked employees can’t perform at their best — and they’re more likely to display absenteeism and presenteeism, which is bad for them and your bottom line.

Some reasons why people may not take time off, even when they have PTO to use, include:

• Feeling too busy to take time off
  
  
• Worrying about burdening their colleagues with their workload
  
  
• Not being able to justify taking vacation days during the cost of living crisis
  
  
• Contending with “unlimited holiday” policies that make them feel uncertain about how much PTO they should be taking

It’s no surprise that team members who don’t take their allocated PTO experience higher levels of stress. On the other hand, encouraging employees to take advantage of paid leave and allocated mental health days promotes good overall health and a positive attitude toward work. Plus, it helps HR teams plan ahead to cover scheduled absences rather than scrambling for last-minute cover.
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5. Foster a culture of healthy work-life balance

Work-life balance has a significant impact on employee absenteeism. That’s because poor work-life balance can lead to more personal conflicts and health issues, resulting in unpredictable short- and long-term absences. 

In particular, the correlation between mental health and absenteeism is apparent. Factors like stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions may account for lost working days, demonstrating how important it is to provide a wellness program that supports a healthy and balanced working environment.

There’s also a strong business case for prioritizing work-life balance initiatives. According to Deloitte, employers get (on average) £4.70 back in increased productivity for every £1 they spend on supporting employee mental health and well-being. 

So, how do you foster a healthier work-life balance within your company? Here are some things you can try:

• Introduce flexible hours or remote work setups so that employees can reconcile their personal and professional lives more easily.

• Set clear boundaries for when work starts and ends and discourage team members from working during their personal time.

• Implement a well-being program that provides employees with the resources they need to live a balanced life, whether that’s subsidized counseling or a gym membership.
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6. Prioritize diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives

If team members don’t feel a sense of belonging in their workplace, they’ll have a more negative employee experience. And as we know, poor employee experience is directly related to low levels of engagement and, consequently, high levels of absenteeism — making this a crucial area for improvement. 

In addition, underrepresented groups may be reluctant to speak up about the factors that influence their absenteeism. So, it’s important to create an environment where everyone feels empowered to share what’s going on in their lives with their colleagues, managers, or HR teams.

However, according to the Harvard Business Review, there’s a disconnect between how HR leaders and employees feel about the state of their organization’s DEIB initiatives. Indeed, 97% of HR leaders say their company has made DEIB improvements, but only 37% of team members strongly agree. So, simply having a DEIB program isn’t always enough; you need to have ongoing discussions about it with all team members and make continuous improvements over time.

To gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between DEIB and absenteeism within your organization, you can:

• Conduct employee surveys to collect data about the root causes of absenteeism (and whether they relate to DEIB).
  
  
• Use survey insights to make improvements to your recruitment process, people management approach, and leave management systems.
  
  
• Provide DEIB training for employees at every level to foster an empathetic, inclusive working environment.
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Rethink your approach to reducing absenteeism

Absenteeism is a normal part of running a business. Employees are only human, after all. 

But when someone is away from work frequently or there’s a pattern of frequent absenteeism across your organization, you may be dealing with a deeper people management issue — be it practical or cultural.

A people-centered absence management system is one of the most effective ways to make a meaningful effort to understand and address absenteeism issues in your workplace.

Indeed, there are no shortcuts to reducing employee absenteeism. HR leaders must take a well-rounded approach that recognizes the relationship between employee engagement, company culture, and absenteeism to prevent unplanned absences from getting out of control. 

Leapsome has the tools to simplify this process. Our HR platform integrates people enablement and absence management features, making it easier than ever to monitor employee leave and address cases of absenteeism. 

Because we’re passionate about helping businesses build top-tier work experiences for everyone, and we know that an excellent approach to absence management is an important piece of that puzzle.

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Our brand-new, comprehensive HRIS includes the features you need to tackle core HR processes and employee engagement initiatives. 

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