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Absence Management is a significant cost to 90% of businesses. On average sickness absence costs employers £659 per employee every year and employee absence costs employers 8.4 working days for every member of staff per year; this represents 3.7% of working time. There are many reasons why people take time off work. These can be categorised as:  short-term sickness absence (uncertificated, self-certificated or covered by a doctor’s certificate) long-term sickness absence unauthorised absence or persistent lateness other authorised absences eg annual leave; maternity, paternity, adoption, or parental leave; time off for public or trade union duties, or to care for dependents; compassionate leave; educational leave. A key element of managing absence effectively is accurate measurement and monitoring. An organisation must assess if it has a problem with absence, its extent and the best way to tackle it. lost time rate frequency rate Bradford factor The first step to managing absence effectively is to ensure that you have a clear policy in place that supports your organisation’s business objectives and culture. Legislation requires employers to provide staff with information on ‘any terms and conditions relating to incapacity for work due to sickness or injury, including any provision for sick pay’. Effective absence management policies must spell out employees’ rights and obligations when taking time off from work due to sickness.   The policy should: provide details of contractual sick pay terms and its relationship with statutory sick pay outline the process employees must follow if taking time off sick – covering when and whom employees should notify if they are not able to attend work include when (after how many days) employees need a self-certificate form contain when they require a medical certificate (sick-note) from their doctor to certify their absence mention that the organisation reserves the right to require employees to attend an examination by a company doctor and (with the worker’s consent) to request a report from the employee’s doctor include provisions for return-to-work interviews as these have been identified as the most effective intervention to manage short-term absence. Effective absence management policies are needed to encourage employee motivation and commitment and reduce absence. Employees need well-defined job roles, challenging but realistic targets, and support and training to help them achieve these targets. Research reveals that some of the most successful tools in reducing employee absence are an early intervention by managers and good communication. A large part of managing absence is about ensuring staff can raise issues that may be troubling them at an early stage so that they can be addressed before they escalate. Effective absence management is also about creating work environments where employees are less likely to wake up and think ‘I don’t feel like going in to work today’. Employers should collect and use data to identify particular patterns of absence and underlying causes, for example, the management style of a particular manager or an increase in workloads. It can also provide the business with evidence of how absence impacts on the bottom line and why it is worth investing in an effective absence management programme. There are a number of measures that can be used to assess and manage absence, each of which gives information about different aspects of absence.