Absence Management

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Mathew, excellent point on disability. Its deeply worrying though that many employers, including those in the public sector who should know better, still dont disregard disability related sickness absence from redundancy selection criteria. Pregnancy related absence is quite rightly 'red circled', but the same logic is rarely applied when it comes to disability issues. A few high profile cases with damages set to reinforce the seriousness of the issue might drive the message home, as the current very clear guidance and codes of practice seem to be ignored.

I find it surprising that no-one has referred to the matter of disability related absence, eg for chronic conditions like arthritis. This means that you will need to embed awareness that the standard tigger points and procedures, disciplinary or whatever, will need to be overidden by specific arrangements confirmed in respect of individuals. What it may mean in practice is that the trigger is set off, but is ignored as per agreed variation as it seen to be wholly linked to the disability for instance in that period. You will need to ensure that standard sickness recording can be separated from disability absence recording. This is not a charter for someone to 'play it up', but will ensure the employer does not fall foul of Equality and Disability statutes. For instance, if you were to attempt to select redundancies on the basis of a matrix including sickness absence, but which totally ignored the fact that most of the sickness absence was done to their disability, then both disability discrimination and employment tribinals would beckon.

I know the 'Bradford' system has gained a certain amount of credibility in HR circles, but as a general observation I would be cautious about using anything that came out of a management school in the 80's . Remember that this was the time when people - thats what human resources used to be called - were being commodified as part of society becoming a human grocery store for employers (Axel Rose was a hell of a wordsmith!)
An ongoing question that I have yet to receive an intelligent answer to is why the number of periods in the equation is squared (quite apart from the obvious dress up as scientific and methodologically sound). Why not cubed? or taken on its own? Hey ho, I was told at school that my tendency to inquire would get me into trouble. Just because a system ensures consistency doesnt make it a good system. The main lesson of the equality of opportunity discourse is that equality of opportunity does not mean treating everyone the same.

Have a look at the Bradford Factor,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Factor
It's used here with trigger points
>125 Formal attendance review
>250 Oral Warning
>500 Written Warning
>1000 Final Written Warning
The above are subject to investigation before the actions are taken as in many cases there's a legitimate reason for the absence.
The trigger points are published and are calculated on a rolling 12 months period.

Agree with Kate, that openess is the fairest way for all so you know whats expected.
My previous workplace had an absence policy where the trigger points were 5% of the total work days available, or 3 occasions, over a 12 month rolling period.
something to consider.

I agree with Kate - it's good for people to know where they stand, and putting trigger points in the policy helps to show that everyone's subject to the same rules (which can be handy if you're ever challenged at an ET etc).

There's no legal obligation to have trigger points, although ACAS acknowledge that they can be helpful (see p7 of: http://www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=241&p=0).

Best wishes

I'd put the trigger levels in the policy/procedure which needs to be shown to all staff. Then everyone knows what is expected and it's fair all round.

I am in the process of designing an absence management policy. Legally do I have to publish the actual trigger levels or is the absence policy/procedure enough?