The HR Dictionary

Absenteeism Policy

An Absenteeism Policy puts in place a set of policies to manage and reduce the number of employees who are absent from work and provide the opportunity for employees to utilize days off work for better work-life balance. The policy will usually set out guidelines for what is considered an acceptable amount of absences, the consequences of exceeding this amount, and the process of requesting and approving such absences from work.

A well-thought-out absenteeism policy is economically beneficial to any corporate because adverse absences from work affect productivity and efficiency. Any workplace policy that specifies personal time off, sick days, free time, parental leave, and similar provisions are considered an absenteeism policy. Employees who often fail to show up or constantly arrive later than planned can adversely affect the enthusiasm of all other employees as well. 

An HRIS or HR software is a great way to create and manage absenteeism policies for small and large organizations. It allows the policies to be easily created and shared with all employees for acknowledgment, build pay policies that track absenteeism, and much more so HR teams don’t have to do the tedious work manually. It saves time and makes the HR processes faster and error-free. It also allows employees to apply for leave of absence based on the relevant policies automatically and for the supervisor to approve or reject the requests in just a few clicks.