Short, frequent and unplanned absences are very disruptive to the workplace and can have a significant impact on productivity. The disruption caused by such absenteeism can easily go unnoticed in a large organisation, especially where teams are managed by relatively junior managers who may struggle to deal with the issues involved. An HR department can add significant value to an organisation in such circumstances by monitoring for such absenteeism and then providing timely support to team leaders, thereby improving the organisation’s productivity.
In the 1980’s, Bradford University undertook research into absenteeism and its connection to workplace productivity. This research eventually led to the development of the “Bradford Factor”, which provides a score for each employee, indicating the level of absenteeism over the preceding period. The Bradford Factor score can be calculated from the number of absences and the total days absent during the preceding year as follows: B= N2 X D
Where:
B is the Bradford Factor score
N is the number of absences over the past year
D is the total number of days absent
Of course all of the required information for a Bradford Factor score calculation exists within your payroll system and so it is relatively straight forward to produce a report from DataPay that will allow you to monitor absenteeism. The score can then be used to trigger investigation into high scores and any subsequent action. Let us know if you would like help from us to configure reports to monitor absenteeism in your organisation.