27 May How Does Poor Attendance Affect the Workplace
Poor attendance by employees becomes a burden on the company and the rest of the staff. Because of the drop in productivity their absence causes and the extra work handed to other staff members which impact morale, they are a financial burden to the organization.
Let us understand how a workplace is affected if an organization is not strict with administering attendance
1. CONTINUITY
Employees who are frequently absent from the job prevent their team members from being productive. Rather than having the team member complete his task during regular work hours, the team may have to either extend their work hours or even work on weekends – all this to adjust to certain employees not being available at work. Temporary replacements of team members due to the absenteeism of the core team member makes it extremely difficult for a manager to determine the skill set and how that employee fits into the workflow of the group.
2. DIMINISHED PERFORMANCE
In every organization, there are these employees who are allowed to continue an excessive number of absences without any penalty from the senior leadership – this partiality can hurt others’ performance. This leads to low productivity, poor employee morale, and a high attrition rate.
3. EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
The employee is expected to develop professionally as the organization grows. When that employee has poor attendance, his performance gets affected and he is no longer able to add value to the company in helping to fulfill the firm’s growth objectives.
4. CONFLICT
Team members who are left to cover for employees with poor attendance records eventually start to dislike their chronic absenteeism. Over time, this frustration can result in open conflict between staff members which will not be in the best interest of the organization.
A Better Alternative
A better alternative is to come up with a robust plan that can make your team accountable. If you run a company where your organization does not require strict office hours. This method might be the most suitable for you and you can easily avoid poor attendance.
Let’s consider a software development office.
In this type of an office environment, it’s the individual tasks that add up to a project completion. With a few additional hours of planning and breaking down a project into individual tasks can go a long way. If these tasks are assigned to the respective people, be it development, testing, marketing etc. you are more organized with clear goals for each person.
Now if you plan weekly on what tasks are to be completed, every person on the team is accountable. If you relax on your working hours and set completion milestones, you will be rewarded at the end of each week.
As you get more experienced with task creation and assignments, you will be surprised to see that your task list will closely match the weekly hours that are required to be put in by your employees.
Here are the advantaged of such a working principle. This may not apply to all companies, but if you can pull it off, it’s a win-win for both you and your employees.
Employees feel rewarded
If you give the flexibility of time to your employees, the work output is much more as they can work when they feel the most productive.
Work gets done beforehand
If you plan your tasks right, you will be surprised to see how much work gets done. Always be realistic about your goals.
Your team will never let you down.
If your team is focussed and you develop a culture of week on week goal completions, you will never be let down at the end of each week.
Avoid Delays
Projects never gets delayed and you will always have an ontime delivery of your tasks.
