An organization is driven by its workforce, which is the ultimate lifeline that keeps all operational procedures and processes functioning optimally and makes the best use of its investment and resource. The significance of a competitive workforce increases multi-fold if your organization is operating in a competitive industry in a pool of multiple competitors.

Be it your management processes, the production operations, or the sales or supply chain management, it is your human capital that fuels the organizations and steers its progress and growth. Therefore, it becomes all the more essential for employers and managers to ensure an effective and efficient workforce management to optimize the potential and productivity of their employees to generate profitable returns.

There are certain hindrances, such as increasing absenteeism and poor leave management mechanism, which tends to slow down the organization’s median pace of performance and growth. Here are some smart approaches for employers and managers to reduce employee absenteeism at the workplace:

Devise an Elaborate Attendance Policy

Make it a point to include an elaborate account pertaining to attendance and consequences of absenteeism in your organization’s official policy manual. Train and educate your employees about the organization’s expectations in terms of attendance and how they can meet the set bars. Guide them about how they can consume their allotted leaves while retaining their pace of performance. In addition to that, incorporating employee attendance as an essential factor to determine an employee’s performance at the time of appraisals will definitely reduce the unplanned absenteeism at the workplace.

Incorporate Flexible Working Mechanisms

A lenient approach to working patterns and job designs, in the areas where it can be applied, is always a good idea to ensure that the employees take responsibility for their assigned tasks and manage it in the best fashion, even if they get engaged in an emergency or an urgent personal work.

Compensate and Reward Your Employees for Good Attendance

Many organizations compensate their employees for unconsumed casual or sick leaves in their annual performance appraisals. This is a good strategy to make your employees more responsible and careful while consuming their allotted leaves.

Besides that, introducing a paid time off policy is a smart tactic to ensure that you have sufficient workforce present on board at peak times, such as vacations or holidays. An understanding of the most popular days your employees might request a day off will help reduce unplanned absences and devise an actually profitable paid time off policy.

Ensure and Accurate and Error-Free Time and Attendance Record

It is essential to maintain an accurate record of time and attendance for each employee through automated workforce management tools, such as time and attendance systems. This will not only help you determine each employee’s proficiency through his punctuality, but will also enable you to devise a better leave management system to ensure that no task is neglected in the case of a planned or unplanned absence of an employee.