Do you know how difficult it is for the HR Department to ensure proper attendance of employees? On paper, it sounds easy. But in reality, ensuring it reflects the most difficult task of the lot.
Why Is Attendance Important at Work?
Attendance is of paramount importance to both employers and employees. Punctuality of employees helps increase productivity and ensure the smooth functioning of operations. Some major problems that arise from poor attendance are as follows:
- Punctual and dedicated employees get discouraged when they have to carry out others’ duties in addition to their own. Eventually, the efficient employees become demoralized with the chronic absenteeism of others, hampering adequate work progress.
- Employees that constantly miss the office, suffer from keeping up with company’s work pace and processes.
- Lower productivity, caused by absenteeism, may hinder project progress, leading to work delays and missed deadlines.
- Staffing costs increase as substitute employees are hired or existing employees work overtime to fill the “gaps”.
- Attendance falls under workplace ethics. Continuous absenteeism sends the wrong moral message to all concerned organizational members.
So how do you ensure proper attendance in your company culture? What drives an employee to attend the office timely and regularly? The answer lies ahead.
Employee Attendance Improvement Plan
Rectifying attendance issues and ensuring proper attendance requires an employee attendance improvement plan. This plan primarily focuses on reducing absenteeism to a minimum level. This plan also facilitates enhancing productivity, increasing employee engagement, and ensuring work-life balance.
The attendance improvement plan requires some significant factors to be effective:
- Creating a workplace attendance policy is mandatory. This policy lays out all regulations of office timing, leave policy, overtime, and more. It should adhere to local labor laws, to avoid legal discrepancies in case such a situation arises. It should act as a guideline for all attendance issues.
- Tracking attendance via fingerprint attendance machines and attendance tracking software should be ensured. The patterns of absence should be noted, distinguishing between leave, tardiness, and overtime. PiHR Attendance Management Software is a great tool for this.
- Methods for analyzing and recording attendance problems should be chalked out.
- Employees need to be communicated properly about their attendance scenario. Their situations and problems need to be considered and necessary actions are taken.
Taking into consideration the above factors, the attendance improvement plan should be laid out. This plan would assist in coming up with ways to creatively improve attendance.
How To Improve Employee Attendance
If there are attendance problems, there also will be solutions. We suggest 10 creative ways to improve attendance and reduce absenteeism and tardiness at the workplace.
01. Developing Digital Engagement Initiatives
COVID-19, since 2019, shifted work plans and executions to online platforms. Hence, initiatives should be taken to develop virtual events, games and engaging content. This will help build a long-term digital HR plan, ensuring strong employee attendance.
02. Analyzing Employee Attendance with Analytics
In this age of digitalization, digital reports and attendance management software like PiHR’s can be used for detailed analysis. Visually engaging dashboards may be used to show data and patterns to both management and employees. This will help them understand and improve performance.
03. Communicating Workplace Attendance Plans Innovatively
Using digital methods and integrated platforms, HR can communicate attendance policies to employees. Using animated case studies or gamified simulations involving the consequences of absenteeism will implant a thought in the employees’ mind about the importance of proper attendance.
04. Arranging a Gamified Competition
The HR can organize a periodic competition involving rewards and points for “Perfect Attendance”. Top performers may be listed down in a leaderboard for all to see and be encouraged.
05. Awarding Higher Attendance with Monetary Value
If possible, the management can reward those maintaining perfect attendance or near, by adding stipend to their monthly salaries. This will encourage others to follow suit and be more punctual and regular to the office.
06. Training Managers and Supervisors on Attendance Management
The company can train departmental managers to learn various digital attendance management systems with relevant attendance tracking software. ZKTeco Attendance Machines, for example, are comprehensive yet easy to use, which may be taught to managers to operate. They may also be taught to interpret attendance dashboards to understand current situations. Most importantly, they should be clearly communicated about the attendance policies and plans.
07. Availing Reports to All Devices
The world is going mobile and nano, day by day. Thus, availing of real-time reports to mobile devices (tabs and smartphones) is a must. HR software like that of PiHR, may be used to communicate attendance updates to employees and employers. That too in real-time, allowing instantly updated information.
The mobile device attendance report can also signal employees taking necessary steps in maintaining attendance. It allows employers to track employee attendance as well, advising employees to attend office or not to, based on circumstances.
08. Allowing Flexibility and Shifting Work
Regardless of position or role, employees should be encouraged to work in shifts, keeping the operations ongoing. Shift Management systems integrated with attendance tracking can help in these. Like the one of PiHR, shift management modules help set up rosters. These digitally formed rosters may be viewed on any synced device in any digital platform, helping employees know and adapt accordingly.
This strategy will allow employees to work in rosters and adjust work-life balance. This will keep them happy as they get to select timely work hours, rather than timed ones.
09. Constituting an Engagement Committee
Having an Employee Engagement Committee will allow the committee members to plan out engagement initiatives. Of course, a budget should be set. But if select employees and managers arrange “fun” initiatives, like games sessions or “themed hangouts”, to motivate their colleagues, this will improve attendance in a big way.
10. Empowering Employees
Finally, an organization should run the whole attendance system empowering the employees. The employees should have their say in development of the attendance improvement plan (discussed above) on a continual basis. They should be provided with constant digital feedback on official social media or platforms. They should feel endorsed and acknowledged.
Endnotes
If an organization wants to retain its employees and ensure proper attendance, employee-centric plans are inevitable. Employees should be an integral part of the attendance improvement plan. They should be taught thoroughly about the ins and outs of attendance management tools, both tracking machines, and software. They should be motivated in creative ways so that the first thing they want to do each morning is “come to the office on time”!
