Human Resource Management In Absence At Work Management Essay

Introduction

Every organization has set a goals and objectives and to achieve that they have good quality as well as good quantity of human resource. Without this factors organization cannot achieve their goals. Thus these activities are arranged and manage by human resource management. The success of any organization depends upon effective management of human is resources. Human resource is backbone of any successful organization. Organization couldn’t achieve their goals or objectives ignoring the effective human resource management. The effective human resource management advice to management team that how to optimize the current resources (Armstrong, 2006).

I have chosen two peer-reviewed articles of Human resource management in absence at work.

Journal 1:

Source: Dunn, C., & Wilkinson, A. (2002). Wish you were here: managing absence. Personnel Review, Volume 31(Issue 2), Page 228.

“Absence is the employee is not available for work when the work is available for that employee” (Eggert, 2009). As this definition we can say that absence is unavailability of the employees when there is work for them.

“Sickness absence is a major public health problem that has important economic impact because of high insurance cost and lost productivity” ( Roelen, Koopmans, & Groothoff, 2009). Due to absence of the employees in work is costly to organisation because the organisation has to pay directly to absence employee as well replacement employee. So the expenses of the organisation on absence employee will be doubled. The impact of the absence into organisation is myriad. It includes reduced in production quality, job done by less experienced employee, loss of costumers due to failure to meet deadline.

This journal explains how to manage absence of employee in organization. To curb absence into organization positive incentive plays major role to manage absence. Attendance bonus is common type of financial bonus. Disciplinary action is another technique to control absence in organisation. This is negative way to control absence into organisation which includes reduce annual leave, dismissal to poor attendance employee, deducting company sick-pay.

The research was made in 1997 with seven companies which includes manufacturing sector (Prodco, Manuf), retail sector (Shopco, Superco and Foodco) and financial sectors (Consultco and Bankco). 50 interviews participate in total with semi-structure interview.

Profit of Absence

The significant of absence is related to cost. At Shopco implemented new rule that no payment of the first day of sickness to control one-day absence. Manufco, Prodco, Superco, Foodco, Consultco calculate cost of absence as measurement of size of the absence problem in organisation. The production manager emerged if the current rate of the absence 11 percentage reduce to 2 percentage it could be saved £100000. Cost benefit is major factor to motivate reducing absence in to organisation.

Monitoring Absence

The method of monitoring absence in organisation is varied and every organisation uses different way to monitor absence. The organisation used absence report as key factor to identify absence pattern. Because of the absence pattern the line manager can predict who will be unavailable in the work. The most common method of monitoring absence in organisation was a combination of trigger review procedure, regular absence statistics and informal methods of monitoring. The nature of the organisation and the types of employee mix determine the method of monitoring absence.

Controlling Absence

Many companies used “Return to work interview” as a tool for controlling absence. The propose of return to work interview to identify the reason for the absence, welcome the employee back to work, ensure the employee is fit and fine to back to work (University, 2011). The research shows that return to work interview could be effective in increasing employee awareness of pressure to attend work. Every organisation did not take interview and interview could be informal as well.

Defining responsibilities and ownership

The line manager plays a vital role to manage absence in organisation. The line managers know the pattern of absence among their employee rather than HR department. It is hard to relay message to each and every employees by HR department. The line manager should take responsibilities to minimize absence in organisation.

Discipline and the dynamics of line management discretion

Discipline plays vital role to control absence in the organisation. The policies and procedure played a part in creating pressure to attend work. Human resource department only cannot minimize the rate of absence if the line manager did not take responsibilities in absence management.

Journal 2:

Source: Bennett, H. (2002). Employee commitment: the key to absence management in local government? Leadership and Organisational Development Journal, Volume 23(Issue 8), Page430.

According to CBI (1999) in recent years employee absence at work culture is very grown in organisation. Absence at work is emerging problem for organisation in economically. IDE (1998) estimated that huge amount (around £13bn) of economy went to useless due to absence at work. According to Ho (1997), the impact of the absenteeism into economic is myriad. It includes reduced in production quality because job done by less experienced employee, loss of costumers due to failure to meet deadline. This journal explains how absenteeism impact in local government in UK economy and employee commitment plays vital role to curl absence at work. Government Staff Commission for Northern Ireland conducted a research to measure and find out cause of absenteeism in local government. In this research, it took organisational commitment as a key factor to control in absenteeism and examines relationship between employee commitment and absence through three factors which are human resource managers, line managers and employees. The main cause of being absence at work is physical illness in local government and low job satisfaction in some cases.

Marrow (1983) explained commitment as following “The Strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organisation”. Organisational commitment is effected by different factors such as morale, motivation, job satisfaction.

There is bond attachment between organisational commitment and absence to curl absenteeism in local government.

Comparative analysis

Journal 1 explains how the absenteeism does negative impact in economy of the organisation whereas another journal explains the organisation commitment play a vital role to curl absenteeism in local government.

Journal 1 explains to control absence in organisation it introduce attendance bonus and disciplinary actions. It means whoever achieves more attendance at work, they should be rewarded and who has a poor attendance at work without satisfactory reason they should be dismissal from their responsibilities.

Critical analysis of the journals

In journal 1 the writer suggest to avoid absence at work reduce annual leave, reduce pay scale of sick or injury leave. Accident or illness cannot be predicted but it happened. If employee gets illness or injury during organisation they will be compensated. But most of employee took sick leave for non-illness propose and took leave on Monday and Friday ( Barham & Nasima, 2010).

In journal 2 the writer organisation committed

Conclusion

After studying the two above journal, I would like to conclude absenteeism is growing negative culture in organisation and government body. Due to the absence at work, huge amount of money went to unnecessary expenses. In one research it estimated that the direct expense of absenteeism to UK economy in 2003 was £11.6 Bn ( Barham & Nasima, 2010). It makes negative impact to growth of economy in organisation as well as country. Sick leave is most common method to be absented at work because it will be paid. Sometimes employees get sick leave without sickness. The main factors for getting absence at work are job dissatisfaction, growing absence at work culture in organisation, to avoid pressure at work, getting paid without work. If employees in sick leave, the organisation has to pay them but if they are not genuinely sick, the organisation still has to pay those employee who take sick leave. And other thing due to absence at work, the organisation has to hire another person for that position. Because of this the organisation has to face various kinds of problems that includes has to pay extra to replacement employee, job done by less experienced employee so that production quality will be deducted and loss of costumers due to meet deadline. Organisational commitment plays vital role to curl absence at work.