During a remote workforce, it's impossible to watch over every employee to check whether they are working on not, as some of the employees leave their systems to finish other pieces of stuff of their home. The main reason behind it is, they hesitate to talk about their leaves with their HR and team leaders due to rejection. Hence, to overcome such situations, an Absenteeism Policy must be made to apply for taking a day off hassle-free.
Not only this, but the management should set a protocol which includes all the points the employee must agree and obey them respectfully. To make this more clear, let's discuss the most significant policies that a company should implement. But, before that, let us understand, what is this policy?:
WHAT IS ABSENTEEISM POLICY?
The policy includes the mandatory guidelines to balance the productivity when the employee is on leave and in what circumstances the worker is free to take a day off.
WHY IS IT NECESSARY?
Implementing such a policy will create a systematic manner to apply for leaves, and it will make the work much smoother for employers to grant leaves to their employees. Apart from this, they can identify the absentees and hand over their work to the others to maintain complete productivity.
WHAT SHOULD THE FIRM INCLUDE IN THE ABSENTEEISM POLICY?
1. PURPOSE:
There is nothing without a cause. The phrase indicates that there should be a reason behind everything, which is also applicable for the employees applying for leaves. The purpose should be strong enough for the employers to accept your request.
2. SCOPE:
In this, the employee needs to identify the work he/she is doing according to the rules, regulations, guidelines, and other procedures included in the policy. It is applicable for all the workers, whether they are working part-time or full-time.
3. STRICT ACTIONS:
Along with the guidelines, the policy should also mention the rules for contravening the protocol because the policy should be the same for everyone, whether it is superior or subordinate.
4. OTHER POLICY FACTORS:
Numerous factors are necessary to keep in mind while creating the policy, such as:
- Leave Entitlements: The term refers to the number of leaves the company offers to its employees, also called paid leaves. Some of them are:
1. Vocational Days
2. National Holidays
3. Festive Holidays
4. Administrative Leave
5. Paid sick Leaves
6. Medical Leave
7. Parental Leave
The company should mention every detail about the paid, unpaid and casual leaves when an employee joins the firm to avoid confusion.
- Approvals With Documentation: Make sure the documents you submit for your leave request should be up to the mark. It will make the work much more comfortable for the employer to assign the absentees' work to others.
- Approved Absence: Approved absence is seeking permission from your manager and getting approval for the same. For proper maintenance of the attendance sheet, they should mention in the Absenteeism Policy.
- Family And Medical Leave: If the company is US-based, the employees are free to apply and take 12 weeks of FMLA in a year.
- Tardiness: Apart from implementing the policy, there should be a logbook for registering the exact time when the employee returns after the break. Through it, the managers can keep a record of the duration the employees are taking refreshments.
ANOTHER SOLUTION?
For making it easier and time-saving, the management can also go for the installation of an attendance tracker in the employees' systems. It is an employee management software that tracks the working days/hours and monitors the employees' productivity. Some of the best features of these time-tracking software are as follows:
- Automatic Screenshots: The software captures real-time screenshots that can update the management of the employees' activities.
- Browser & App Data: It analyzes the web history and the applications used to keep records in the cloud storage for the firm to check.
- Idle Users: Many employees waste their time sitting idle, but employee management software tracks the idle hours. Through this, the tool helps the management to stay alert of the non-working employees.
- Productivity Reports: The software analyzes every employees' productivity and the time consumed to finish the assigned projects.
FINAL WORDS:
We hope the article helped you to understand about the Absenteeism Policy along with the key features they should include while implementing it.
