Managing Retention and Absenteeism

1. Abstract

Managing retention and absenteeism is an important task for every company or employer. It can be assessed as a process with few stages. This paper will look at identifying the cost of employee turnover, importance of understanding why employee leaves, retention strategies and how they should be implemented.

The first step of an effective attendance management program is to identify specific areas which are affecting attendance. Some general causes of absenteeism will be mentioned later in this paper.

2. Background

The importance of this briefing paper is to summarize all gained information, knowledge and facts regarding to issues in Managing retention and absenteeism in business, preparation to write an individual academic paper and to give a brief idea how it will be approached.

In Managing retention and absenteeism is necessary to cover following areas:

* Absenteeism

* Sickness absence

* Employee turnover

* Staff retention strategies

* Staff retention and management of knowledge

* Benefits of staff retention

3. Findings

3.1 What the assignment is asking me to do

The definition of absenteeism according to Mathis and Jackson (2005) is any failure to report for work as scheduled or to stay at work when scheduled. They divide absenteeism into 2 groups: voluntary, that is unavoidable and voluntary, avoidable.

The sickness absence can be short - term (repetitive) or long term illness. CIPD's Absence Management Survey (2011) revealed for the first time that stress is the most common cause of long - term sickness absence. The top causes of stress are organisational change and restructuring, job cuts, pension benefits and job insecurity.

To manage absenteeism it is important to record and monitor absence rates. Managers should treat each case individually and set an example of good attendance. Motivation and gaining commitment from staff, possibly offering incentives for attendance are also the ways to tackle the absenteeism.

It is important for a company to decide how it is going to record the absenteeism and staff turnover. It costs companies billions of pounds each year, approximately £666 per employee and it is often a result of a poor management performance.

Mathis and Jackson (2010) on cost of absenteeism: Absenteeism is expensive and it can be controlled by discipline, positive reinforcement, use of no-fault policy and paid time - off programs.