How to Tackle Common Attendance issues at Workplace? 

Attendance has been an issue for a very long time. Not just at the workplace but everywhere we go.  

Remember how we used to go around with our teachers to ask them for attendance?  

Good old days, right!

Well, now that we have become HR professionals, we are responsible for our as well as the employees’ attendance. Having numerous employees means having different issues and attendance issues is on top of it.  

In this blog, we will see what are the attendance issues that we face as the HR manager and how we can resolve them. So, let’s get started! 

Table of content

1. Attendance Management: A brief Introduction. 

2. What are the common Attendance issues? 

3. How can we tackle the issues related to attendance at the workplace.  

4. Summing it up.

Attendance Management: A brief Introduction. 

Attendance is one of the most significant responsibilities of the HR leader. It is necessary for the managers to maintain a proper and transparent attendance system.  

Attendance management is crucial to ensure higher productivity, accurate payroll computation, efficient employee management, resource allocation and evaluating the performance of the employees.  

There are various attendance management systems used for simplifying the complex task of managing attendance. They are, 

1. Biometric system: Biometric identification is a widely used Attendance Management System these days. Fingerprints, iris recognition, facial recognition, voice recognition are examples of various biometric identification used. It ensures accuracy, reliability and authentication of the attendance. 
    

2. Radio-frequency Identification (RFID): Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) are the cards or tags which use radio-active to identify a person or an object. This card is given to an employee with their particulars saves to it. When they tap or make it read on a reader, it saves the information on the system of the HR automatically.  
    

3. Barcode System: A barcode system is as similar as RFID. In this, a unique barcode is given to the employees. Barcode scanners are installed to read the unique barcodes. They are either given to them digitally or through an ID card.   
    

4. Cloud-based system: Cloud-based Attendance Management System is developed specifically for tracking employee attendance. They mark their attendance through this software and the data of their working hours is stored with the HR manager. 

An Attendance Management system needs to be accurate, adhere to the attendance policies of the organization, user-friendly and secure.  

What are the common Attendance issues? 

This report by Bureau of Labor Statistics  shows proper statistical data from the current population survey about the Absences from work of employed full-time wage and salary workers by occupation and industry.  

Obviously! There must be issues with the Attendance. HR leaders face these issues daily. Let’s see what these issues could be.  

1. Showing up late: Coming late to the office can be a beginning to the issue with attendance. The employees suffer with tardiness and thus show up late at the office. This costs the productivity and the functioning of the organization. 
    

2. Last-minute absenteeism: Imagine you have an urgent meeting with the C-suite of the company and that one employee who has the presentation is suddenly seen nowhere. Ouch! Hurts, right? This situation arises when the employee gives a last-minute excuse and gets absent. This is another issue on the rise these days.  
    

3. Uninformed leaves: This situation is somewhat like last-minute absenteeism but in that former we at least expect the employee here, the employee is absent without any formal application or information. Uninformed leaves muddle up and disturb the flow of the team.  
    

4. Leaving early: Early departing employees can be a liability for the organization if it is hampering their workflow. At times, employees tend to procrastinate their workload and keep it for tomorrow. Once done, it becomes a habit and thus hinders the productivity of the team and organization.  
    

5. Longer and frequent breaks: We all know that one person who can’t sit in one place but moves here and there. I hope you are not one! This type of approach of people not being consistent with their flow of work can disturb the entire team’s functioning. 
    

6. Time consuming attendance process: Many small businesses look for manual or lower cost attendance management which can be time consuming. This outdated process not just wastes time but also hampers the productivity of the employee.  

How can we tackle the issues related to attendance at the workplace. 

Attendance issues are not impossible to resolve. They can be minimized primarily by implementing ways. 

1. Highlight the attendance policy: If you don’t have an Attendance Policy, you should have one. It sets the expectations of the employer to the employees and creates a layout for attendance rules and regulations that must be adhered to. If you have one, ensure that the employees understand your concern about attendance and focus more on it.  
    

2. Establishing better communication: Communicate with your employees to know the root cause of the problem. The employees may not be able to express their concern about excessive absenteeism or any other form of issue. As an HR manager you should try to talk it out and communicate with the employees about the attendance expectations.  
    

3. Generating regular reports: When we see a report about ourselves, we get to know our current position. Similarly, creating a report about the current attendance status can help the employees to get better within a timeframe.  
    

4. Provide flexibility: Who doesn’t love to be flexible? Provide flexible arrangements for the employees such as flexible working hours, hybrid mode of working, if applicable, to ensure positive outcomes in the attendance regularity. 
    

5. Appreciate and reward system: Remember the category of “100% attendance awards” in schools? Undoubtedly it attracted a lot of students to come up on the stage and get that award. If we can see a positive outcome there, we can see it here. Appreciate and reward those employees who are regular and on time. This’ll encourage fellow employees to show up daily and thus increase productivity.  

Summing it up. 

We have learnt so much about the issues and the ways to tackle them. The time today, especially after the pandemic has drastically changed the culture of the corporate. More and more employees want flexible opportunities. 

It has increased the attendance issue over the time.  

As a responsible HR leader, it is your duty to ensure employee retention in the company. We know you can do it and you will!