The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index recently published new data giving insights into how much employee absenteeism is costing various sectors in terms of productivity. Take a look at the below table to find out how much absenteeism is costing your business sector:

*Excluding nurses, physicians and teachers

With so much at stake from absenteeism and lost productivity, it is worth understanding the different types of employee absences a little better. Employee absences usually fall into one or more of the following categories:

Predictable – e.g: a spike in annual leave requests for the week between Christmas and New Year.

Unpredictable – e.g: an unexpected illness leaving an employee unable to work for a week.

Scheduled – e.g.: this is an absence you know about in advance and can plan for, such as an employee taking a day off perhaps for a court date, or a scheduled dental appointment.

Unscheduled – unscheduled absences are inevitable, and can be difficult to manage without proper procedures and technology in place.

Controllable – e.g: employees taking long lunch breaks or sneaking off early are controllable absences.

Uncontrollable – e.g: perhaps your employees come in late to work due to poor weather

The unfortunate truth is that absenteeism often masquerades as legitimate or uncontrollable absences. The key to properly managing absenteeism is looking out for patterns of absences, repeated absences or excessive absences.