Small businesses cite absenteeism as one of their biggest challenges and in the current climate things are only getting worse. Our latest blog provides cost effective and practical strategies for managing absence – even with limited resources.
Striking the Balance for SMEs: Practical and Cost-Effective Absence Management
For SMEs navigating the CIPD’s recent findings of increased absence levels, the call to action is clear and urgent. With an average of 7.8 days of absence per employee, SMEs, often operating with limited resources and redundancy, face substantial impact. The need for cost-effective, practical, and scalable strategies to manage absence and enhance engagement is paramount for the sustainability and growth of SMEs.
The Current Landscape
The 2023 CIPD report underscores a significant uptick in absence levels, with the public sector witnessing an average absence of 10.6 days per employee. Despite limited budgets and minimal staffing redundancy, SMEs must proactively address this challenge to ensure continuity and resilience.
Engagement and Absence: Navigating the SME Context
For SMEs, the interplay between engagement and absence is amplified. Limited resources and less-developed systems heighten the need for effective absence management, while also underscoring the importance of fostering engagement within budget constraints.
Striking the Balance: Practical Insights for SMEs
- Cost-Effective Wellbeing Initiatives
Embrace low-cost, high-impact wellbeing initiatives. Consider flexible working arrangements, regular check-ins, and creating a supportive work environment. You could also consider ‘walking meetings’, low cost health and welling apps, team steps count challenges or wellbeing social events. Small changes can make a significant difference in employee wellbeing and engagement.
- Leverage Existing Resources
Utilise existing resources for absence management and support. Ensure your employees complete self-certification forms even after one day of absence. This should be followed up with a ‘return to work’ interview by the employee’s line manager. Equip line managers with the knowledge and skills to manage absence effectively and offer consistent support to their teams. Do they know the triggers for absence levels and being provided with support on handling sensitive conversations? Each situation can be completely different and do your managers know who they can discuss matters with to prepare for meetings? Do you have a hotline to HR professionals?
- Data-Driven Decisions
Even without extensive systems, SMEs can employ basic data analysis to identify absence patterns and inform practical solutions, helping pre-empt and address absence issues proactively. You could use triggers such as number of occasions or the *Bradford Factor model as below. The cost effective database HR software that we use and provide to Clients is able to monitor and report on occasions and Bradford Factor scores and helps to identify patterns and trends.
- Senior Management’s Role
For SMEs, the senior management’s commitment to demonstrating appropriate behaviours is even more critical. Their direct involvement can significantly influence the organisational culture, promoting accountability, support, and resilience. It is important that the business as a whole is being consistent and fair in the approach across the board.
- Incorporating the Bradford Factor
Utilise the Bradford Factor to objectively assess and manage staff with poor absence records. This straightforward tool, requiring minimal resources, can effectively complement your absence management strategy. This method of calculating is based on the theory that short, frequent, unplanned absences are more disruptive to organisations than longer absences.
- Clear and Concise Policies
Even without extensive procedures, having clear and concise absence and performance management policies in place is crucial for SMEs. Your policy will outline how you manage absence, the trigger points and also the consequences. This will ensure your employees are not surprised when called into absence review meetings. These guidelines ensure fairness, transparency, and consistency, providing a solid foundation for managing absence effectively.
Conclusion
SMEs, despite facing resource and budget constraints, have the agility and flexibility to implement cost-effective and impactful strategies for managing absence and enhancing engagement. By leveraging existing resources, embracing low-cost wellbeing initiatives, and ensuring clear policies, SMEs can effectively navigate the challenges of absence management and employee engagement, ensuring organisational resilience and sustained growth.
🌟 SMEs, Transform Your Absence Management Strategy Now! 🌟 You’re not alone navigating absence management as an SME? We can arrange a chat if you’d like to discuss your current procedure or embark on a new one.
*Bradford Factor B= S² x D
Where:
B = Bradford factor score
S = total number of spells (instances) of absence for that individual in the given period
D = total number of days the individual was absent during the given period
