The Absence Challenge 
Do you know how much absenteeism is costing your business?
Across Canada, $13 billion is lost to absenteeism every year. While you are busy running your business or managing your team within that business, it is difficult to measure how much absenteeism is truly affecting your bottom line. It is estimated that companies spend 10% to 15% of payroll costs on lost time, and that 50% to 75% of lost time is due to short-term absences.
Many HR executives recognize that employee absences are an important productivity issue, but effective absence management programs are difficult to design, implement and enforce. Just determining the scope of the problem is a challenging task for most organizations. To address these challenges, it is best to begin with first principles:
The First Principles of Absence Management are:
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Early intervention: "Don't rely on doctor's notes. The doctor should not be the truent officer for industry"
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Planned communication: “The right information to the right person at the right time”
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Data tracking & measurement: “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”
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Supervisor involvement: “If the supervisor is not part of the solution, they are part of the problem”
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Time and attendance record keeping does not equal absence management
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Policy development and implementation: "Poor policy and implementation are, by far, the most significant causes of avoidable absences"
Effective, practical and comprehensive ways to monitor and track absenteeism, or to implement existing absence management policies, have not been available in the past. Workplace Medical Corp. changes that with real-world solutions for absence management.
