Six strategies for combating employee attendance issues in your workplace.
Good attendance in the workplace is critical to your business’s success, but it can be difficult to maintain as an employer. If you want to stay on top of your employees’ attendance and hold them accountable without being pushy or rude, these six strategies will help you get started in that direction. Some of them are proactive, some of them are reactive, but all of them will help you keep track of your employees’ absences and ensure that they’re not abusing their benefits or your trust.
Fail to plan
Employee absences are always a concern, but how can managers make the process easier? What’s the best way to deal with unplanned time off? There are many variables that go into deciding whether or not an employee will have to take time off from work, and managers have to be ready to react accordingly.
Strict discipline
The following consequences should be enforced strictly if an employee has more than one absence:
● After the first offense, they are docked an hour of their salary or 1 day’s worth of work, whichever is greater
● After the second offense, they are docked two hours of their salary or 2 days’ worth of work, whichever is greater
● After the third offense, they are suspended without pay for a period of no less than 3 days and no more than 7 days.
Incentivize good performance
Some employers offer flexible schedules, part-time work, or the option to work from home if they want to incentivize their employees to take good care of themselves and ensure that they are never absent or late again.
Alternately, you could give out bonuses and promotions as a reward for continued excellent performance over time or establish company policies such as no overtime hours after 10 pm on weekdays (or any other) and require two weeks of training before an employee can access a rotating weekend shift schedule.
Keep tabs on every employee’s attendance
Managing attendance is tough, and tracking each employee’s time on the clock every day may be difficult for one person to manage. Plus, even if you have a time clock it’s always best to have a backup in case the machine breaks down or someone forgets to punch in/out that day. For these reasons, make sure you monitor both of these things as best as possible. Start by making check-ins with all employees during their first week of work and following up periodically until they are well trained on what it takes to log their hours accurately. You can also add a few weekly formal reviews where you go over the number of hours worked by all employees that week with them.
Stay involved with the team
Employees are most likely to miss work when they are not being held accountable or feel like their contributions go unnoticed. You can help maintain employees’ engagement by making them feel like an integral part of the company culture, challenging them with meaningful tasks, and paying attention to small gestures that show you care about them as people.
Encourage creative thinking
Despite their value, employees with less-than-perfect attendance can be a pain to manage. On the other hand, when you can identify potential problems before they arise and establish rules that encourage creative thinking, everyone will benefit from a smoother-running company. Here are six ways to maintain good employee relations and handle both the hard-working and absent employees with respect:
1) Create a system of reward and punishment – When an employee’s tardiness or absenteeism is brought to light, give them a warning.
