Human Resources Skills: Discipline & Grievance: Absence Management

Course Overview

Poor employee attendance and timekeeping problems can cost your organisation money and it comes straight off your profits. A recent CBIO survey shows that it costs on average GBP 495 per employee across the entire UK workforce. As all organisations begin to focus on reducing expenditure, this is an obvious place to start.

You need to employ more staff and pay more overtime, not to mention the costs of sick pay and health insurance premiums. Then there's the cost of your time and those of your colleagues organising cover for the absentees and the cost of short term agency staff or for recruiting temporary staff. Furthermore there aren't just the direct costs; the staff in work often get tired of having to cover for their colleagues who are absent or late into work and having to absorb the pressure absence or lateness creates. Eventually this frustration will boil over into employee relation issues or, worse still, staff turnover, increasing your costs still further. But even these costs pale into insignificance compared to the cost of losing a customer if they do not get their order on time and cancel or go elsewhere next time. The business implications of absence from work cannot be over-estimated.!

Improving employee attendance and timekeeping will improve your profits. It is one area where the HR function can make a cast iron case for its contribution to the business. This course will show you how.

Audience

This course is a must for any HR or line managers, whether in the public or private sector, who have identified improved timekeeping and attendance as a business critical issue. It has been designed specifically to support:

• Experienced HR Managers and Officers looking for a refresher or for those who have a particular problem to address
• Newly appointed HR Officers and Assistants, providing a fast introduction to the subject
• Line managers who have responsibilities for a range of staff who need to improve their staff timekeeping and attendance

Skills Gained

This intensive yet enjoyable programme will deliver innumerable benefits to you and your organisation:

• 1. Learn how you can reduce your organisation's costs
• 2. Find out how to improve employee attendance at work
• 3. Learn how to tackle irritating short-term absences
• 4. Learn how to help the long-term sick back to work as soon as possible
• 5. Understand the legal context for dealing with timekeeping and attendance
• 6. Learn how to develop the policies and procedures for improving employee attendance
• 7. Discover the ways to stop poor attenders from joining your organisation
• 8. Learn how to weed out regular absentees as soon as possible

Above all, this course will help you get to the root of the problem, improve employee attendance, boost productivity and save money.

Course Outline

Getting to grips with the problem

• Profit improvements are possible
• Industry norms
• Responsibilities for tackling attendance
• Recording methods and statistics
• Monitoring methods and typical standards
• Identifying patterns and trends of absence
• Working patterns and health issues
• Attitude surveys
• Job satisfaction

Legal issues

• ACAS Code of Practice and Advisory Handbook on Disciplinary and Grievance procedures
• ACAS Advisory Booklet on Absence and Labour Turnover
• Statutory dispute resolution
• Contracts of employment
• Disability Discrimination Act
• Medical reports
• Statutory absence from work
• Data Protection Act
• Medical records
• Flexible working
• Transfers and alternative work
• Information and Consultation Regulations
• Case law

Dealing with long-term absence

• Managing the return to work
• Occupational health involvement
• Dealing with stress, back pain and similar illnesses
• Employer brand issues
• Permanent health insurance and life assurance
• Employee assistance schemes
• Non-sickness absence
• Practical examples

Dealing with short-term absence

• Types of short-term absence
• Attendance and timekeeping policies
• Tests of reasonableness
• Return to work interviews
• Investigations
• Occupational health involvement
• Action triggers
• Appropriate actions to take, including fair dismissal
• Handling grievances and appeals
• Non-sickness absence
• Practical examples

Formulating and introducing an absence and attendance policy

• Policy content
• HR and line management responsibilities
• Consultation and employee representatives' involvement
• Employee responsibilities
• Relationships between attendance and sick pay
• Long-term disability insurance issues
• Recording and information requirements

Other strategies for improving employee attendance

• Recruitment issues
• Induction training
• Dealing with early problems
• Reward issues
• Absence and timekeeping as a key performance indicator
• Cultural and management behavioural issues
• Developing effective people managers
• Helping employees with short-term domestic/personal problems

Human Resources Skills: Discipline & Grievance: Absence Management / HR-AM