According to Webster's Dictionary, “absenteeism is the practice or habit of being in ‘absence’, and an ‘absenter’ is one who habitually stays away”.

There is no doubt about how crucial it is for an organization to maintain the cooperation of workers in order to preserve the internal decorum and flow of work. When employees don’t show up for work it disrupts the production schedules and may end up affecting the delivery of the project they are assigned to. This is a potential issue faced by many organizations which affects all the channels.

Employee absenteeism is a real challenge for almost all businesses, however, the amplitude of this can differ from industry to industry. In any case, this can become a serious issue for many organizations if left ignored, along with serious delays in projects, customer satisfaction can also get affected which will ultimately end up disturbing the bottom line. Accepting the truth that it happens and may happen to any company or brand no matter how good they are in terms of mapping their employees, it’s better to start fixing the situation sooner than regretting later.

One thing to understand here is that being absent from work and taking a leave due to personal reasons are two completely different factors. Knowing the difference can help segregate the former issue from the latter. Employees can and are entitled to take leaves if they don’t feel well or due to any personal emergency or even for a planned vacation. Absenteeism is a deeper issue that can be due to many reasons.

Learn the top 3 reasons for employee absenteeism

1. Employee burnout

It is practically impossible to bring work-life balance, especially under certain circumstances similar to what we are experiencing these days. The world is going through a crisis that has impacted a lot of people, many small businesses have had to shut down due to financial issues and many are going through some serious changes in order to adapt to the new normal work culture and lifestyle. Due to all the changes, there is increasing pressure on employees to perform better than usual which is causing stress. There’s a difference between good and bad stress, good stress involves motivation and bad stress overwhelms which can push anyone to start doubting their work and performance. Employee burnout is not ideal for any employer or employee. It’s an issue that needs to be addressed widely. 

About 35% of working Americans reported experiencing chronic work stress, and less than half said their employer provides sufficient resources to help employees manage their stress.

There are many ways you can fix this issue, positively motivating your employees is where you start and to do this you can introduce Employee wellbeing programs. When employees feel good at work, their work productivity automatically improves. These programs can also help your employees cope with the normal stresses of their daily lives as well.

2. Employee disengagement

It's technically the simplest one to understand, if your employees don’t feel engaged or if they feel disconnected from their job roles or tasks, they will not be able to perform to their potential and this will eventually lead to Employee disengagement. Well-engaged employees are less likely to contribute to absenteeism. Those who feel that their job roles are interesting or provide them job satisfaction will never feel disengaged and will always put an effort to show up for work. It can be fixed with little effort that can make a huge difference, understanding your employees is important and one-on-one conversations are the best way to do it. Ask them questions about what are the challenges that they’re facing and be patient to hear them out and then provide an alternative solution to fix it. Working together as a team helps keep employees motivated, it increases the chances of regular conversations and boosts confidence in employees to perform better.

3. Their personal life issues

It can also affect an employee’s performance and may cause stress which can lead to employee burnout or absenteeism. Sometimes it's hard for an individual to talk about their personal problems with their co-workers or managers, which can create some major communication gaps ultimately forcing employees to quit without explaining the reasons. Healthy communication can solve many problems be they personal or professional, talk to your employees and try to understand the factors that might be causing them additional stress. This exercise is helpful for most cases and may actually end up bringing a huge change.

At Dropthought we believe that to build a sustainable relationship with an employee, we must value their feedback. We believe in building a situation-based and feedback-centric employee engagement plan that will not only help organizations to leverage the data collected abundantly but also if done right can turn into a long-lasting opportunity to keep your employees feel motivated and connected with your organization. Employees can freely express their opinions and issues they might be facing through anonymous surveys.

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