Its just the odd day off sick!!

Its Friday and Monday and Bob is off again, the third time in as many months. The day after pay day and Sue has another migraine, she’ll be back tomorrow with a new outfit.

Do you have some employees that are having too many odd days off sick? One in five employers do. If you are one of them it is important that you don’t put off dealing with it. There will always be some level of absenteeism but if you actively deal with it in a fair and consistent way you should be able to keep it to a minimum.

Don’t be one of the 28% of employers who do not have a formal sickness reporting procedure. Make sure that you have a clear and consistently applied absence management policy together with a clear idea of how you are going to tackle the issue.

Make sure that your sickness absence policy sets out a reporting structure. Ensure that employees call before a set time to notify you that they are not coming into work. Ask them what’s wrong, how long they think they will be off for and make a note on their personnel file. Make sure that all line managers know what the policy is and actively apply it. According to Personnel Today, 40% of employers cite line managers lack of effective involvement in absence management as the biggest contributing factor to poor absenteeism.

When employees do come back have a quick return to work interview, ask them to tell you the cause of their absence, write it down and ask them to sign it, that way you will always have something to refer back to if you think that their absence is becoming a problem.

If people are regularly off sick and there is a pattern to their absence you need to speak to them sooner rather than later but be sure of the issues. For example work out a percentage of time off compared to others. Speak to them in private and ask them what the problem is.

It may be that they are off on regular occasions as a result of something that you can help them with, for example unfavourable behaviour by another employee or concerns about their work or workload. If it appears that there is no acceptable explanation behind their absences then tell them that if their attendance doesn’t improve then the next step will be disciplinary action.