Throwing Sickies In The Sunshine: How To Manage Heatwave Absences

13th August 2019

Waking up and looking out the window to see the sun shining is a great feeling for most, however, sometimes it’s not so great for employers. It is a well-known fact that warm weather can lead to lower productivity levels and increased absences. How can employers tackle this problem?

 

Ensure your employees know the rules

Make sure that your employees are aware of the rules surrounding absences and that ‘throwing a sickie’ constitutes as unauthorised absence and may result in disciplinary action being taken.

 

Help determine who is taking too much-unauthorised absences

Most organisations that use paper or spreadsheets to manage absences admit that they sometimes skip recording the holiday or absence. Having a software that can show you when and for how long someone is absent will help you when deciding whether you should investigate it and you will have evidence to support this. HR software allows employees and managers to log absences easily and quickly so that you can keep on top of it all and make sure no absence goes unrecorded.

 

Keep your employees cool in work

Make sure your employees are comfortable to help prevent these absences. Ensuring your offices have working air conditioning is a must so that you are ready to take on the heat waves. Another way employers can make it easier for their workers is to relax on the dress code if your office is usually smart. For example, if your employees usually wear suits, you might want to allow them to ditch the tie or wear short-sleeved shirts instead. Allow those who normally have to wear tights to not wear them during this heat. Protective clothing used for health and safety is harder to change, however, you can get variations of it that is designed for the summer with temperature in mind.

 

Allow short notice holiday

During the summer months, employers see an influx of short notice holiday requests due to the weather and school holidays. Allowing your employees to take short notice holiday, as long as they don’t have any commitments, such as meetings or events, can ensure that you don’t get people taking ‘sick days’ instead. You need to ensure that you have a software that can easily deal with the higher demand for holiday requests. Good cloud-based HR software allows employees to quickly request time off and their managers to easily approve it. The system can be accessed remotely so both the employee and manager don’t even need to be in the office to authorise this.

 

Offer flexible working arrangements

Offering flexible working arrangements is another way to keep your employees working and engaged. Allowing your employees to work flexible hours or work from home can be a great way to make sure you don’t have any unauthorised absences. Ensure that everyone reports to their managers though to make sure that everyone knows who is working and where.