How to reduce sickness absence in your business
By Gabriele Kaier, 10.01.2017, Approx. 6 min reading time.
Sickness absence has a huge impact on your company’s profitability. Therefore, it is in your interest to determine the reasons for absenteeism and how this can be prevented. Find below 7 ways to reduce employee absenteeism.

7 ways to reduce employee absenteeism.
1. Manage and analyse work absences
Before launching prevention measures, understand the causes of sickness absence and determine the most common symptoms and influencing factors:- What kinds of illnesses constantly occur in your team/company?
- What conclusions can you draw?
- Are there any trigger or influencing factors which cause or determine the sickness?
- How can you minimize these triggers?
2. Carefully choose your staff
Some illnesses are psychosomatic and are often due to frustration, demotivation, mental underload or simply bad working atmosphere. As a manager you can influence this directly just by carefully selecting your personnel or team members for your project team:- Are the social skills and values of the prospective employee a good fit to your company’s?
- Which employee is the best candidate for the task?
- Is the employee under- or over challenged?
- What are the employee career goals and does it entail a promotion?
- Is every team member successfully integrated?
3. Create flexible working hours
Flexible work schedules take care of the employee’s personal rhythm and foster productivity. Work-life-balance is important for aligning private and professional needs. Flexible working raises employee motivation and satisfaction and reduces stress – which in turn reduces absenteeism.4. Improve the workplace
Reconsider:- Ergonomic conditions
- Lighting conditions
- Noise disturbance
- Indoor climate
- Dissatisfaction due to odours or gases, for example through printers or other devices
- Personnel opportunities to contribute to the workspace design
5. Talk with employees who:
1. have often and only short-term absences. The aim is to determine the cause of such absences 2. return after long-term absences. You can make their integration into the team easier Discussions should reveal the reasons for any absences and also give you an idea of potential solutions. You will need empathy, try to avoid communicating any suspicious or threatening behaviour6. Strengthen team spirit
Raise awareness for absenteeism instead of explaining the negative effects on your business, sensitise your employees on a team level:- Absence time affects the whole team.
- Absence time means more work for colleagues.
- Absence time obstructs projects progress
7. Reinforce safety and reduce workplace accidents
Sick leaves are often caused by neglecting safety precautions or out of misperceptions of accident sources. Many companies have successfully reinforced their accident prevention and control methods. The following questions could help you:- Is there any health and safety advisor in your company?
- Are you complying with the health and safety laws or regulations?
- Have you informed your employees about the occupational health and safety standards?
- Do your employees wear protective clothing or footwear where required?