How to Address Excessive Absenteeism with an Employee 

Is your office looking like a ghost town? Or is your team constantly offline when you need them? Or maybe you feel like all you get are emails about people needing days off for family emergencies or the 20^th flu of the week? 

You may find yourself wondering: What’s really going on here? 

Well, I’m no detective but it sounds like you have a real attendance issue. But we’re here to help. Keep reading and we’ll teach you how to address excessive absenteeism with an employee to boost their presence and engagement at work.  

What is Excessive Absenteeism? 

Excessive absenteeism is a term used to describe an unreasonable number of employee absences. We’re not talking about your inevitable sick days or occasional car troubles, or yearly dentist appointments. We’re talking about a pattern of recurring absences that disrupt the office’s workflow and leave colleagues picking up the pieces.  

Each office can decide what excessive means to them based on their leave policies, such as their number of sick days or flexibility in working hours. However, when absences start to affect productivity and team synergy, that usually signals that you have an issue that needs to be addressed. In this article, we’ll explain how to handle those situations and, even more importantly, give you tips and tricks as to how to prevent excessive absenteeism in the first place.  

The Impact of Excessive Absenteeism on Workplaces 

Okay, so you have an absenteeism problem on your hands. The first question you’ll likely ask yourself is: Why? 

If an employee is missing work, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that they’re just a bad employee, lazy, or don’t care. But often, there’s something deeper happening.

Illness 

In 2022, 7.8 million US workers missed work due to illness-related absences. That’s over 100% more than 2021. Sickness absences are clearly on the rise. This includes your common cold or flu but also chronic health conditions that can be physical or mental. Any chronic condition often requires many medical appointments, longer recovery time, or more frequent illnesses.  

To address this issue, we recommend: 

• Encouraging open communication about health-related concerns. 
• Offering flexible sick leave policies, flex time, or work-from-home options to allow employees time to recover without feeling penalized. 
• Promoting mental health resources such as Employee Assistance Programs or wellness initiatives to support employees.

Burnout 

Overwhelmed employees need time off work to get into a better mental state. Remote work burnout is usually caused by unmanageable workloads, lack of work-life balance, isolation, and high-pressure environments, causing frequent absences.  

To address this issue, we recommend: 

• Encouraging reasonable workloads and providing supportive leadership. 
• Offering flexible work arrangements, such as remote work or adjusted schedules, to help employees manage stress. 
• Learning how to recognize early signs of burnout and promote preventative measures, such as wellness programs and mental health days.

Disengagement 

Employees are human, and when they’re under-stimulated, they’re likely to get bored. This means they’ll probably slowly but surely stop caring. As they grow to feel disconnected from their jobs, they’ll be more likely to take extended breaks, request more time off, and call in sick more frequently. This is commonly caused by frustration due to a lack of career growth, a toxic work environment, or poor management. 

To address this issue, we recommend: 

• Fostering a positive workplace culture where employees feel heard, supported, and recognized. 
• Providing clear career development opportunities through mentorship, training, or leadership programs. 
• Creating an engaging work environment by encouraging collaboration, autonomy, and employee involvement in decision-making. 

The Impact of Excessive Absenteeism on Workplaces 

Absenteeism is a frustrating issue to deal with because one employee’s absence has a domino effect that affects your entire company, from your employees’ happiness to your bottom line. Here’s how: 

Reduced Productivity 

Picture this: You received an email yesterday saying a project would be done by EOD today, and now your colleague is nowhere to be found, in your inbox nor in the office. Yikes! 

Absenteeism reduces efficiency by slowing down the turnaround time for deliverables, causing missed deadlines. It affects your planning by creating blocks in areas where you were relying on a now absent colleague.  

Increased Workload for Other Employees 

Man down! I repeat, man down! 

When one employee is gone, your team just lost a key player. They suddenly need to readjust and pick up the slack for their colleague that’s M.I.A. This means more work for everyone, which can often cause stress, frustration and, you guessed it... more absenteeism.  

Costly for Businesses

If you’re a business owner learning about absenteeism, you’ll want to listen in. Not only does excessive absenteeism cost your team a lot of time, it also costs money!  

Canadian companies lose an estimated $16.6 billion annually in productivity due to employees calling in sick for mental health-related reasons.  

Yes, you read that right. Overtime expenses, hiring temporary workers, and recruitment costs are not cheap, and they add up quickly. Once you start doing the math, you’ll understand why this is an extremely important issue to address.

How to Address Excessive Absenteeism 

Identify Patterns and Gather Data 

If you suspect an employee is absent a suspiciously high number of times, you need to gather the facts. You’ll want to assemble a detailed history of their time off to identify patterns that would indicate excessive absenteeism. This includes compiling the reason for each and noting if they were justified with some form of documentation like a doctor’s note. Without clear records, conversations about absenteeism can feel subjective. This makes it harder for both managers and employees to engage in a constructive dialogue. 

But how do you access those records?  

A leave management software operates as a single source of truth for everything relating to time off. It keeps a detailed log of all leave information, including requests and edits, which can be exported into easy-to-interpret reports.  

Vacation Tracker Reports allowsHR teams to monitor trends over time and quickly identify patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed. If absenteeism spikes during specific periods or affects certain teams more than others, managers can make informed decisions to prevent understaffing. 

Implement Clear Attendance Policies

So, an employee is not showing up when expected or is often M.I.A. But, do they know they’re doing something wrong? Maybe not. 

Having a clear absenteeism policy that is applied consistently and fairly is a key component to reducing excessive absenteeism.  

Employees need to understand how your company defines excessive absenteeism, how leave requests should be managed, how many days off they get per leave type, and what steps will be taken if attendance issues arise.  

Write it all down to avoid ambiguity and guessing games. A well-documented policy sets expectations upfront and makes it easier to hold employees accountable. But a policy only works if people actually know about it. So make sure it’s easily accessible, clearly communicated, and consistently enforced. 

Have a Constructive Conversation  

Here it is, the most important part of any relationship, be it platonic, romantic, or in this case, professional: Communication! 

While it’s not always easy to bring up difficult topics, communication is essential to address the issue. Once you’ve identified a pattern of excessive absenteeism, it’s time for a one-on-one.  

The key here is to not approach this interaction in an accusatory manner, but instead with empathy and a genuine desire to understand and improve the situation. Remember that there may be some underlying personal issues or possibly a misunderstanding of your company’s policies that are causing the issue. Go in with a constructive attitude, discuss your concerns, and make sure to explain your expectations for your team and your policies. 

Framing the conversation around support rather than discipline can also make employees more receptive to finding a solution and resolving absenteeism issues before they escalate. 

Managers may be able to explore ways they can accommodate them to improve their attendance. Options include making changes to their workplace policy or culture to make their team happier and more engaged.  

Offer Support and Solutions

Alright, you’ve established that you have an attendance problem on your hands. Now, what can you do to prevent it? 

Clarifying your policies and having constructive conversations are a start to establishing the right expectations, but if excessive absenteeism is a company-wide issue, you’ll need to make some changes. 

Remember, absenteeism is often linked to burnout or bored employees. In fact, companies with engaged employees saw a 78% decrease in absenteeism. 

Increasing engagement is a ballpark of its own. The easiest way to implement effective changes is to listen to your team. If they’re feeling overworked, you’ll want to rebalance workloads and consider recruiting more employees. If your team is feeling stressed or at risk of burnout, try implementing a wellness program. Shockingly, research shows that they can reduce absenteeism by an average of 25.3%! 

The lesson learned here is that companies that actively support their employees tend to see lower absenteeism rates. Find out what your team needs to thrive and make it happen! 

Monitor and Follow Up

Solving this absenteeism issue isn’t a one-and-done, unfortunately. It requires constant monitoring to keep attendance at steady levels. Managers also need to check in with employees who have been given warnings to discuss their progress and reassess if they need any further support.  

Tracking attendance over time allows managers to see whether interventions have been effective and whether any adjustments to policies or workplace support are necessary. With Vacation Tracker’s automated tracking, reporting, and reminders, HR teams can monitor attendance with greater accuracy and less administrative burden, ensuring that absenteeism concerns are addressed proactively. 

How Vacation Tracker Helps Reduce Absenteeism 

If you’re constantly hearing, “Hey, I won’t be in today” or scrambling to cover for your missing team member (yet again), it’s time to get ahead of the problem.  

With Vacation Tracker, you get a clear, real-time picture of who’s in, who’s out, and when, so you can stay ahead of scheduling gaps.  

But visibility is just the start. What if you could actually prevent absenteeism from disrupting your team in the first place? 

Our software is filled with features that help managers prevent excessive absences. Here are a few benefits we think you might like: 

• Keep key roles covered. With our new Max Users Away feature, you can set a cap on how many employees can be off at the same time, so you’re never left shorthanded when it matters most. 
• Set boundaries on extended leave. The new Leave Duration Limit Add-On helps you prevent extended time off from disrupting critical work, so teams can plan around absences with confidence.  
• Make sure requests go to the right people. Our multilevel approvals let you set up structured workflows right inside Slack and Microsoft Teams, ensuring leave requests get routed to the right decision-makers. No bottlenecks or back-and-forth. 
• Catch attendance issues before they become a problem. With detailed leave reports and trends, managers can spot recurring absenteeism patterns early and step in before it affects the team. 
• Sync schedules with your team’s calendar. Integrate with Google Calendar, Outlook, and other shared calendars, so everyone knows exactly when teammates are out, reducing miscommunications and last-minute surprises. 
• Simplify PTO tracking across time zones and locations. Vacation Tracker adjusts for different holidays, policies, and workweeks automatically, so no one has to guess who’s available.

Absenteeism doesn’t fix itself, and constantly reacting to last-minute call-outs isn’t a solution. With Vacation Tracker, you’re not just keeping track, you’re staying ahead of the game, making sure attendance works for everyone. 

Ready to make excessive absenteeism issues a thing of the past?

Take the guesswork
out of time off tracking.

Know exactly who's off and when—no spreadsheets, no surprises.

Sign up for free

No credit card required.