Struggling with Worker Absenteeism? Seeking Advice on Reducing It Effectively

Respected Seniors, I am facing a significant worker absenteeism problem. Please advise me on how to reduce worker absenteeism.

Regards,
Akhil

Have you identified and studied the reasons for absenteeism in your workers? If so, what actions have you initiated to reduce absenteeism?

With profound regards,

Dear Mr. Dinesh V Divekar, I have gone through your post, and it is so informative. Here, I would like to get a few more inputs to reduce absenteeism:

1. I visited a 5S Model company - it is well-established, offers good remuneration, provides an excellent working environment, offers frequent training (Behavioral as well as Technical), operates on shifts, and provides a monetary increase in pay every 6 months. However, the issue is that the company is unable to reduce absenteeism.

Kindly provide your suggestions.

Regards,
Vishwa R P

I think I would be able to suggest something which could be helpful, but first let me know the following:

1) What kind of absenteeism are you referring to? Is it the "paid leave" that the employee avails or the one which we term as "LWP" (Leave without pay)? (I understand your company is a textile unit.)

2) Where is it located and how's your remuneration structure like? Do you have a variable portion, and is it linked to performance?

3) Are your workers' salaries good enough? (I mean, are they comparable to other competitors located in the surrounding area/territory?)

4) Do you have any Unions? How's the hold of your company management over the Union/s?

5) How's your overall business going? (I mean, how has the company's performance been for the previous year?) Have employee salaries been paid on time?

6) Does your company give Overtime? How's the workers' attitude in doing Overtime?

A few of these questions are quite sensitive but very important to understand the organizational climate prevailing in your company and hence devise the strategy to tackle the problem at hand. Since "absenteeism" is a trend in your company, it would have more to do with the "general climate" prevailing than any individual factor.

Regards,
A.B.

Hi all,

My boss requested me to do a monthly report about absenteeism. I don't know how to do it. Can someone help me? Thanks.

Hello Akhil, the first thing to do is to motivate employees and implement incentive plans. However, the incentives depend on the overall monthly attendance and performance, determining the amount they will receive.

Dear colleague,

In addition to other colleagues' input, the following may also be taken into account:

1. Your stated issue is workers' absenteeism and not the turnover of workers.

2. You need to be clear about what absenteeism is. Absenteeism is an act on the part of a worker of not turning up for duty at the scheduled reporting time of the shift for which no information is given by him/her. It is a sudden absence from work. In the case of planned leave, the management knows in advance, and therefore, alternative arrangements can be made. It is the absence without prior information that results in the loss of valuable man-hours, as the poster is referring to this.

3. No doubt, a study of the pattern, trend, and severity of absenteeism as understood above needs to be taken on a short-term and long-term basis over a period.

4. While the systematic procedure for data collection of absenteeism department-wise, shift-wise, type of job-wise, gender-wise, marital status-wise, season-wise, and close to weekends/festival holidays needs to be put in place, immediately start with the department where this problem is severe and take corrective actions like counseling, warnings, etc.

5. Among the prominent factors generally known to cause absenteeism are the distance from residence to the workplace and mode of transport, sudden illness/death of a family member or close relative, uninteresting work, involvement in vices like drinking, gambling, indebtedness, farming work, apart from adverse working conditions like excessive heat, dust, etc., either individually or in combination of one or several of them.

To measure the daily percentage of absenteeism, company-wise and department-wise, divide the number of workers absent by the number of workers scheduled to report for duty, multiplied by 100.

The problem of absenteeism requires a multi-pronged attack after a clear analysis revealed by the study as referred to above. It may require corrective actions on the part of the management in improving working/service conditions together with counseling, disciplinary actions in fit cases.

Regards,

Vinayak Nagarkar
HR and Employee Relations Consultant