5 Causes of Absenteeism at Work and How to Mitigate Them

Lost productivity is among the most unpredictable and detrimental of business expenses. Absenteeism is one of its biggest contributing factors. Worse still, it can be symptomatic of deeper-rooted problems. So, let’s look at some of the major causes of absenteeism and what you can do to tackle them.

What Is Work Absenteeism?

Let’s make one thing clear. Some employee absence is inevitable. So, you shouldn’t be trying to stamp it out entirely. But unchecked absenteeism is a huge drain on your financial performance. And it’s not simply a matter of your investment in absentee staff members.

Absenteeism leads to understaffing. Everyone else has to pick up the slack, which means service quality suffers. Even the best customer retention software won’t help if you’re trying to run a thriving business with a skeleton crew.

But, to understand the causes of absenteeism, you need to know where to draw the line. So, let’s look at the different kinds of work absences.

Approved Absences

Approved absences shouldn’t cause significant disruption because you’re expected to plan for them. It’s any absence where an employee has gotten permission in advance. These include allotted vacation days and sick days. But also things like jury duty or planned flexibility for out-of-work commitments.

Occasional Absences

It often feels like we’re expected to run like clockwork. But real life doesn’t work that way. Unexpected things happen all the time. Last-minute emergency medical appointments. A child’s daycare pick-up plans falling through, and so on.

And reasonable employers should accommodate for this. It’s when an employee’s absence forms part of a larger trend that you should be concerned.

Chronic Absenteeism

Chronic absenteeism means a person regularly takes unscheduled time off of work. This can take a few different forms, like:

• Last-minute or unapproved sickness absence.
• Failing to show up without explanation.
• Frequently leaving early.
• Over-extending breaks at work.

5 Causes of Absenteeism and Their Solutions

It’s easy to label absentee staff as bad employees. But the truth isn’t so one-dimensional. Absenteeism doesn’t just happen. There are various underlying causes. Failing to address them is guaranteed to cause problems for your business. Here are some of the main causes of workplace absenteeism.

1. A Lack of Employee Engagement

Understanding employee engagement is essential if you want to maintain a cohesive workforce. Disengagement is one of the most widespread causes of absenteeism. Research shows that barely over a third of employees are actually engaged at work.

Engagement is essentially a person’s level of attachment and commitment to their role in an organization. It’s very multi-faceted, as just about every aspect of the employee experience influences it in some way.

How To Engage Your Employees

Engaging your employees essentially means building the kind of place people want to work in. This includes:

• Offering career development to prevent stagnation.
• Supporting employee well-being.
• Enabling work/life balance.
• Providing better ongoing feedback.

Many businesses now use SaaS employee engagement platforms to connect with their people. These tools give employees a voice at the table so they can tell you firsthand what they actually need.

Kanban tools, in particular, are great for actively engaging employees in their jobs as well as wider company operations. Visualizing tasks and workflows gives everyone a shared sense of purpose. It lets them see how their role supports other projects and helps everyone to achieve common goals. 

Visual collaboration platforms like Kanban Zone, can provide your employees with a virtual space where they can actively collaborate and discuss ideas. Giving your employees a way to voice their opinions will keep them motivated.

But you can start making a real impact on engagement today simply by addressing the other causes of absenteeism on this list.

2. Poor Mental Health

Poor mental health is on the rise. Depression, anxiety, and other disorders can leave employees struggling to face their working lives. This leads people to burn through their sick days and vacation time or take unplanned absences that impact those around them.

Given that we spend so much time at work, it inevitably plays a role in our mental states. Engaging, rewarding work offers a valuable sense of purpose. However, consistently low workplace morale wears away a person’s well-being.

Supporting Mental Health at Work

Employee mental health is a tricky issue because of the stigma around it. People feel unable to discuss their mental well-being for fear of being judged. But real pushback against this stigma has to come from the top down.

You need to set an example for your employees. Be willing to talk about your mental health. Take the time to prioritize self-care and encourage your team to do the same.

Conversations and awareness only go so far. You need to give employees the means and space to look after themselves. And, if it comes to it, to seek help from a professional.

3. Stress and Burnout

Stress and burnout go hand-in-hand with poor mental health. But they deserve their own spot on this list since you have the potential to influence them so much. To some extent, job stress is a natural part of working life. There’s no getting rid of it entirely. But this doesn’t mean that all job stress is acceptable.

Whether it’s unmanageable workloads or toxic colleagues, your people can only put up with undue stress for so long. Burnout is what happens when an employee reaches their breaking point. It’s a state of physical and emotional exhaustion.

Burned-out employees feel trapped and overwhelmed. At this point, they’ll be taking as much time off work as they can. That is, if they don’t quit their jobs altogether. But burnout is more than what a few vacation days can fix.

It can have a lasting impact on someone’s mental health and ability to work. The best way to eliminate burnout in your organization is by being preventative.

Setting Manageable Expectations

If you’re witnessing high levels of burnout in your team, you may need to rethink your management style. You might think management is all about getting the most out of people in the shortest time. But you need to understand the importance of realistic deadlines.

Visualizing what everyone is working on, when, and where is a great way to assess people’s workload and set expectations moving forward. Use Kanban boards to designate tasks and map out priorities. This is particularly useful for employees who work across different teams or projects. Features like connected boards and Work-In-Progress (WIP) limits will help avoid situations where employees are allocated more work than they can realistically achieve within the timeframe.

Rather than throwing ad hoc tasks around on top of everyone’s normal workload, these boards also ensure complete visibility of tasks and progress. You can then work together with individual employees to gauge their workload and set manageable expectations to avoid burnout in the future.

People need goals and milestones they can achieve steadily. Breaking tasks up offers a sense of progression, keeping work from feeling Sisyphean.

A Kanban board is a great way to keep the whole team well informed of the company’s goals and what are expected from each team member. This helps set expectations better by making task monitoring more visual, thus, making it a lot easier to handle.

Since burnout is one of the major causes of absenteeism, curb presenteeism. Start encouraging people to clock off at the end of the day. Remind them that working while exhausted leads to wasted resources and productivity.

Sometimes, overtime is unavoidable. And it can help your team sprint to the finish in a big crunch. But, if you’re regularly relying on overtime and other discretionary efforts to reach your basic goals, then something’s wrong.

4. Job Hunting

It’s no secret that people sometimes take a sick day with an ulterior motive. But, sometimes, that motive is actually to seek greener pastures. The Great Resignation, which began in 2021, revealed widespread employee dissatisfaction. And plenty of people are actively applying for other roles, or at least considering it.

Job hunting is one of the more difficult causes of absenteeism to address directly. People don’t tend to advertise at work that they’re looking for an escape hatch. So, how can you curb this type of employee absence?

Preventing Employee Turnover

The only real solution is to address the root causes of employee turnover in your business. This means you’ll need to identify patterns in the people leaving your business.

Take short-term turnover, for example. When a recent hire quits, it can suggest some sort of incompatibility with the role or work environment. Plenty of people get drummed out of fast-paced roles due to a lack of support or proper guidance.

For instance, you might issue new call center staff with call discovery scripts to help them establish a dialogue with customers. Or you could assign peer mentors to coach them through their first few calls.

So, what about when you lose some of your longest-serving employees? This can suggest a lack of career development or objection to policy changes.

When you lose someone to turnover, invite them to participate in an exit interview. These can offer valuable insights to help you avoid losing more top talent in the future.

5. Family Emergencies

It’s inevitable that a lot of your employees will have family lives. And there’s nothing like having kids to keep a person on their toes. There are times when parents may have to leave work on short notice to handle some emergency.

The lack of malicious intent with this form of absenteeism is a cold comfort. It’s important for employers to be supportive of those with families. Especially ones with young children or vulnerable older relatives. But you also need to figure out how to mitigate the impact.

How To Support Working Families

Connecting your employees with daycare facilities for their kids can offer a vital sense of stability. The same goes for elder care support like nursing staff home visits. Giving your employees peace of mind frees them up to focus on their work commitments.

Then, there’s job flexibility to consider. The challenges of remote work are worth it when you consider the benefits of work-life balance and career accessibility. Why force someone to use one of their days off when they can finish up their work at home?

Absenteeism Can Indicate Workplace Culture Problems

It’s important to tackle the causes of absenteeism where you find them. But realize that these issues are often just the tip of the iceberg. Absenteeism often stems from problems in your workplace culture. Unrealistic workloads, harassment, or even a lack of basic fairness.

Assuming that absentee employees are simply lazy won’t address the root causes. By asking yourself why absentee employees avoid their work, you can start building a more supportive and effective workplace for everyone.