Your absenteeism questions answered

Our absenteeism expert, Simon Macpherson, has been solving absence issues for more years than he’s prepared to admit to. One thing that continues to amaze him is how many large organisations are still not getting to grips with costly workforce issues such as sickness absence management. Aside from teaching people to sail in his spare time, he loves nothing better than a good old fashioned debate about absence management…

Here Simon answers questions on how absence management software can help to tackle absenteeism, and provide tools for effective sickness absence management...



Q Like most companies we have an issue with absenteeism, but can absence management software really help reduce the level of absence we have?
A Using an absence management solution to monitor attendance shows staff that you are taking absenteeism seriously. Our customers find that levels of staff absence fall as soon as they start monitoring and dealing with absenteeism in a consistent manner, and perhaps rewarding good attendance. There’s no hiding place for absent staff once a Kronos system is in place, which always has a positive effect on absence levels!



Q We find it difficult to report on the types of absenteeism in our organisation. How many different types of staff absence could an absence management solution log?
A There’s really no limit to the number of types of absenteeism you can record – planned and unplanned staff absence, and you can even add free-format comments for further detail.


Q In the case of sickness absence management, for example, can we record information at a very granular level such as bad back, head cold, food poisoning etc. What about absenteeism like  jury service, sick child, unauthorised day off and so on?
A Kronos absence management system lets managers create numerous reports to analyse the types of staff absence either for the entire company, a small team or down to each individual and indeed compare best practice amongst departments. Absence is measured at a very granular level, just as you’ve mentioned.



















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