What is absenteeism in the workplace?
Excessive employee absenteeism occurs when employees demonstrate a pattern of missing work, whether they are regularly late or frequently call out at the last minute without providing a reason.
While absences at work occur from time to time due to personal or medical reasons, employee absenteeism becomes an issue when workers don’t communicate about their attendance or take advantage of company lenience to avoid doing their jobs, especially during busy or high-pressure periods.
For example, someone calling their boss to tell them their tire went flat on their way to work is an example of an employee appropriately handling an absence that’s out of their control. If that employee starts canceling their shift last minute on a weekly basis, their one-time issue can become a case of absenteeism in the workplace.
Types of absences
Now that you know how absenteeism is defined, keep in mind that your employees may miss work for many reasons. Many of these absences, however, aren’t necessarily absenteeism.
The main types of absences at work include:
- Approved absences. Requested, permitted absences for holidays, parental or medical leave, and jury duty or a leave of absence
- Occasional employee absences. Unplanned absences due to unexpected obligations, including illness, bereavement and childcare
- Virtual absenteeism. Appearing online and active but not actually being present or performing work duties
- Chronic absenteeism. Intentional or habitual absence without employer approval
What causes absenteeism?
Absenteeism generally isn’t as simple as an unwillingness to work and can often imply underlying issues.
Some causes of staff absenteeism may include:
- Mental health. Absences for depression and other mental health conditions rose by 300% from 2017 to 2023.
- Childcare or eldercare. Employees may miss work due to childcare or eldercare needs, such as unexpected illnesses.
- Injuries. Acute and chronic injuries resulting from accidents at work or elsewhere cause an average of 11 days of lost work and $1,590 in lost value per employee.
- Health issues. Illness or medical appointments commonly cause employees to miss work, especially during cold and flu season.
- Low morale. Heavy workloads and high-pressure environments can lead to burnout, stress and low morale, causing employees to miss work.
- Disengagement. Employees who don’t feel connected to their jobs or engaged with your company’s mission may lack the motivation to attend work.
- Harassment. Unchecked bullying and harassment could cause employees to avoid their workplace.
The impacts of absenteeism
While employees miss work for many valid reasons, ignoring work absenteeism issues at your business can lead to an unproductive company culture and disrupt the workflow of your team. Small attendance issues can eventually grow and have negative effects that span across your organization.
For example, employee absenteeism can affect your business’s efficiency and productivity. Although the costs of absenteeism vary by industry, employers pay approximately $3,600 per year for each hourly worker and $2,650 per year for each salaried worker. Indirect costs also hurt overall profitability and productivity.
Direct costs
The direct costs of absenteeism include:
- Salary or wages paid to absent employees
- Overtime costs for employees who fill in
- Higher wages for contractors to complete missed work
- Reduced pay for employees if they don’t receive sick pay
- Decreased revenue due to missed performance targets
- Administrative costs to manage absences
Indirect costs
Indirect costs vary across departments, businesses and industries, including:
- Additional management costs for finding fill-in workers
- Penalties or lost revenue due to product delays or unsatisfactory customer service
- Customer complaints and damaged brand reputation
- Replacement costs for hiring and training new employees
- Decreased morale and heightened stress due to heavier workloads
- Reduced productivity due to unqualified replacement workers
Policies to prevent work absenteeism
Introducing or refining attendance policies can help reduce unnecessary absences and lead to healthier, more satisfied employees.
Establish an employee attendance policy
An attendance policy sets guidelines and expectations relating to employee attendance. Many employees miss work or aren’t held accountable for absences due to a lack of attendance policy.
Review your current policy or create a new one that details how your company handles the following:
- Planned absences
- Unscheduled absences
- Tardiness
- Break times
- Missing work without notifying management
- Sick leave allowances
- Holiday leave
- Unpaid or other types of leave
- Disciplinary action
- Attendance policy exceptions
How to create and maintain an absence policy
Consider these steps to develop and enforce your company attendance policy:
1. Choose an appropriate buffer
When creating your attendance policy, make sure absenteeism is defined in a way employees can understand. Decide how many absences an employee can take before it becomes an issue and when lateness becomes problematic.
2. Create escalation levels
Decide on a consistent warning system to enforce tardiness. For example, you may want to consider starting with a verbal warning, moving to a written warning next time and putting them on probation after additional offenses, depending on what escalation process you decide on.
3. Track attendance issues
Develop a system for tracking employee attendance issues to create a clear record of employee behavior to use as evidence when addressing staff absenteeism. Even a simple spreadsheet can prove extremely helpful in maintaining awareness of work absenteeism on your team.
4. Open lines of communication
Create a clear system employees must use to communicate about possible absences. Determine who employees should contact if they expect to miss a day, want to trade shifts or need to leave work early.
Opening lines of communication prevents no-call-no-shows and helps management avoid logistical problems associated with unexpected absences at work.
5. Enforce rules consistently
Once you have a policy in place, apply it consistently. While all employees have different life circumstances, consistency when enforcing the company attendance policy may help reduce risks of favoritism.
6. Post the policy prominently
Include the attendance policy in the employee handbook and post it in a visible location. Even if your team doesn’t have issues with absenteeism in the workplace, regularly remind them of company policies to keep standards high.
Address unscheduled absences
If you notice unscheduled or repeated absences at work, address the problem early before it escalates. Checking in with employees helps communicate attendance expectations and helps ensure employees aren’t struggling with underlying issues.
Disciplinary action isn’t always necessary, but depending on your policy, some employees may require it due to habitual absences that affect work performance.
Consider these steps to address the problem.
1. Find the root cause
Have a discussion about why they’ve been calling in or showing up late to work. You might even provide support in cases where employees struggle with health or personal issues.
Employees may take absences due to a disability or health reasons, so don’t assume they’re simply avoiding work. Workplace bullying or feeling overwhelmed could also lead some to take days off due to stress.
To find the root causes, have empathetic, solution-oriented conversations with employees while respecting their privacy.
2. Have the company policy in-hand
When speaking with employees, have a copy of the company policy handy. This lets you directly compare their behavior to the agreed-upon expectations of their positions.
Providing employees with a justification for your concerns can show them how their absences at work impact the team. It also demonstrates that you hold them to the same standards as other employees.
3. Refer them to helpful resources
Once you understand the employee absenteeism issue, refer them to resources that might help correct the issue. For example, mental health resources may help them address challenges in their personal life, while work-from-home opportunities and wellness programs may improve work-life balance.
4. Create a plan for improvement
When meeting with employees, set clear timelines for expected improvements. Work with them to track attendance and discuss the next steps if the issue continues.
This might include checking in with their direct managers daily, reviewing their schedules each week or having them clock in and out during lunch.
5. Schedule future check-ins
Arrange regular meetings to assess progress and ensure they’re resolving the causes of their work absenteeism. If employees know they have meetings with management coming up, they may work harder to show growth and progress.
Tips for encouraging good attendance
Having a company culture that encourages consistent attendance often proves the best way to prevent work absenteeism. Use these tips to prevent absenteeism on a wider scale.
Encourage work-life balance
Employees who enjoy their company culture and don’t feel stressed at work may be more likely to be excited about coming to work and less likely to miss shifts.
Implement a wellness program
Employer wellness programs and initiatives, such as fitness or nutrition services, often correlate with reduced healthcare costs and absenteeism costs. They may also help with overall healthy behavior, morale and productivity.
Get employee feedback
Asking employees why they’re missing work helps them feel heard and validated, potentially boosting morale. To get the answers you need about staff absenteeism, speak to employees one-on-one, host meetings to discuss changes or distribute anonymous surveys about absences and work conditions.
Offer flexible schedules
Many workers find the typical 9-to-5 day restrictive and unnecessary, and that’s why many workplaces offer remote or flexible work arrangements.
Flexible schedules let employees perform work duties and generally avoid schedule conflicts with life’s other obligations. Employees struggling with commuting costs or experiencing health issues may benefit from working remotely.
Work absenteeism FAQs
What is an acceptable absence rate?
Absence rates vary across occupations and industries, but the average absence rate is 3.1%. Service occupations, including healthcare support workers, show the highest rates at 4.7%. Most companies consider less than 2% an acceptable absence rate and address employee absenteeism rates of 10% or higher.
What’s excessive absenteeism?
Attendance rates vary by job and industry, so excessive employee absenteeism to your business may be fine to others.
To discover rates of work absenteeism, track the data with a spreadsheet. Create cells for the date, their absence or presence and the reason if they don’t come to work.
Using a spreadsheet like this helps you notice spikes in missed work days so you can take action sooner rather than later.
How do you measure absenteeism?
To measure absenteeism for a single employee:
- Divide the number of unexcused absences in a given period by the number of work days for that total period
- Multiply the result by 100 to get the absenteeism percentage
For example, an employee misses three workdays in one month, and that month has 21 working days.
- Divide the number of unexcused absences by the total work days for the period: 3/21 = 0.1428
- Multiply that number by 100: 0.1428 x 100 = 14.28%
