How can I measure employee absenteeism?

8 of February, 2021

Employee absenteeism is a harsh reality for any business. We wish all our employees would show up every single day and never miss a shift for no good reason, but that simply will never be the case. However, although there will always be an employee missing work without a legitimate excuse from time to time, it is possible to significantly reduce the employee absenteeism and its negative impact on productivity. Measuring your employee absenteeism rate is the first step to take in order to deal with this problem.

What is employee absenteeism?

Employee absenteeism encompasses the unannounced and unsanctioned absences from the workplace. The absences that are taken into account here are not excused by the employer. We must also distinguish employee absenteeism from absences due to a legitimate medical condition.

It is important to make this distinction since, while all absences hurt a business’s activity to a certain extent, the absences that correspond to employee absenteeism have even more dire consequences due to their unplanned nature. Moreover, you won’t be able to do much to fight other types of absence in the workplace, but there actually are several ways to effectively reduce absenteeism.

What is the employee absenteeism rate?

The employee absenteeism rate gives you the amount of days that employees miss over a certain period of time. Calculating your absenteeism rate allows you to compare yourself to others and thus determine how big of a problem employee absenteeism is for your business. You will then be able to take action to decrease your employee absenteeism rate if need be.

How to measure employee absenteeism

You can measure the employee absenteeism by using a simple formula. All the data it requires are:

• The average number of employees. You can find that number by adding together the number of employees at the beginning and at the end of the period and then dividing the result by 2;
• The number of unexcused absences over the analysed period of time. You will therefore need to make sure to be recording all unexcused absences and leaving out the legitimate ones;

Having trouble tracking your employees’ absences? Sesame’s employee panel allows each employee to request a leave of absence and keep track of their activity.

• You will also need to decide over which period of time you want to measure the employee absenteeism. It is common to calculate monthly, quarterly and annual absenteeism rates. Then, determine the number of working days within that period.

Here is the formula to get the employee absenteeism rate:

Employee Absenteeism rate = (Average # of Employees X Unexcused Absences) / (Average # of Employees X Total Workdays)

Now that you know your business’s employee absenteeism rate, the next step is to determine if this rate is acceptable. To do so, check the average absenteeism rate for your industry and see how well you fare compared to it. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the absenteeism rate (meaning absences for other reasons than illnesses and injuries) in 2020 was 0.9%. If you’re not satisfied with your absenteeism rate, check out the different solutions to reduce employee absenteeism in the workplace.