In the modern business world, it is essential to utilise resources efficiently and manage employees optimally. An essential part of this process is absence management, which includes overtime, absences and holidays. In this blog post, we highlight the central importance of absence management and then introduce the ZEP module for overtime, absences and holidays.
Table of contents - What you can expect:
Why absence management is important
Causes of frequent absences
Optimise absence management with ZEP
Prevent absenteeism
Absence management in human resources focuses on monitoring, analysing and reducing employee absence rates. This requires identifying the reasons for absences, eliminating them and developing preventative strategies.
Comprehensive absence management also includes discussions about absences, return-to-work interviews and the successful reintegration of employees.
Absence management is much more than the mere administration of absences. Rather, it is a strategic function that has a direct impact on the performance and long-term success of your business. Here are 5 key principles why you should not lose sight of absence management:
Unplanned absences and overtime can severely impact productivity by causing interruptions and delays. Effective absence management helps to minimise these losses by highlighting bottlenecks at an early stage and taking appropriate countermeasures. In this way, flexible replacement solutions can be found despite unexpected absences and the workflow can be maintained smoothly.
Fair and transparent management of overtime and leave promotes employee satisfaction. When employees feel that their workload is balanced and their leave requests are handled appropriately, employee loyalty to your company increases at the same time. This, in turn, reduces turnover and the costs of training new employees.
Unplanned absenteeism can cause considerable costs. Companies are forced to use additional resources such as temporary staff to compensate for the loss of work as much as possible. Effective absenteeism management enables you to minimise these costs by reacting to staff absences at an early stage and finding alternative solutions.
Absence management is crucial in order to fulfil legal requirements with regard to Working time regulationsholiday entitlements and overtime. Non-compliance can lead to legal consequences and severe financial penalties (up to EUR 30,000 fine are possible!).
Effective management of overtime and holidays helps to create a healthy working culture. It allows your employees to recuperate and increases the chances of a healthy work-life balance, which in turn promotes physical and mental health.
Absenteeism in the workplace is a common phenomenon that can have significant consequences for both the company and the employees concerned. The causes of frequent absences are varied and often complex. A better understanding of the background can help to develop suitable measures to reduce absenteeism. The most common reasons for absenteeism include
In today's rapidly changing business world, where time and resources are precious commodities, efficient absence management is crucial to the long-term success of your organisation. Our additional module Overtime, Absences & Holidays plays a special role here. This is because our software solution not only offers a comprehensive range of functions, but also forms the centrepiece of effective absence management.
All functions & advantages at a glance:
Overtime is unavoidable in many companies, but managing it correctly is crucial to using resources efficiently and ensuring employee satisfaction. Our add-on module allows you to set a standard working time for each employee and keep an overtime account so that target and actual working times can be compared. You and your workforce benefit from the following key functions:
Automatic overtime detection: ZEP compares the recorded working times with the defined standard working times and automatically recognises overtime.
Automatic mechanisms for calculating & compensating overtime: Our software offers automated tools for the precise calculation of overtime and enables simple compensation.
Time off in lieu: Employees can request time off in lieu for overtime reduction directly in the calendar, integrating the process seamlessly into your daily work routine.
Time surcharges: Bonuses on public holidays or special times can be shown as time bonuses and added to the overtime account - this function can be switched on/off for each employee, depending on whether overtime is included in the salary or not.
Managing absenteeism can be a complex task, especially in larger companies. ZEP simplifies this process considerably:
Fast & clear absence recording: Our software offers you a user-friendly calendar that enables your employees and managers to record absences quickly and easily at the click of a mouse.
Absence categories: In ZEP, absences are divided into paid and unpaid absences, which makes accounting and evaluation much easier - whether for illness, parental leave or other reasons.
Configurable authorisation process: You can define approval processes for absences in ZEP to ensure that work schedules are always well organised and bottlenecks do not arise in the first place.
The manual and often still paper-based Holiday planning is time-consuming and error-prone. Applications for leave get lost, do not find their way to the decision-maker or simply take too long in the approval phase. ZEP helps to speed up this process many times over:
Quick & clear holiday application: Your employees can easily apply for holidays in the ZEP calendar, which makes planning much easier.
Automatic sending of holiday requests: For leave requiring approval, our software automatically sends leave requests to the relevant decision-makers for direct approval (or rejection) at the click of a mouse. Less work, more flow.
Automatic notifications: ZEP makes it possible to send automatic notifications to selected recipients when leave is requested. This ensures more efficient planning and coordination of absences.
Absenteeism in the workplace impairs productivity and causes additional costs. Companies that actively focus on preventative measures can therefore not only reduce absenteeism, but also increase the well-being and motivation of their employees.
Keep detailed absence statistics with categories such as sick leave, accidents, absences from work, special leave and further training in order to obtain a holistic picture and derive targeted measures to reduce absence. Analyse which employee groups are absent particularly often, the distribution by age group, company affiliation, changes in working conditions as well as structural changes and seasonal fluctuations.
The Design of the workplace has a significant impact on the productivity and well-being of employees; ensure ergonomic furniture, good ventilation, appropriate lighting and a low noise level. Also check with managers and employees how the workload can be adjusted to avoid under- or overworking. This will help you to Duty of care as an employer.
Flexible working hours such as Flexitime or home office options improve the work-life balance of employees, as they can organise their daily lives better. This reduces stress, improves well-being and increases the Attendance of the employees.
To increase productivity and motivation, you should avoid monotony, Micromanagement and avoid narrow room for manoeuvre. Offer your employees freedom in terms of content, encourage them to proactively develop ideas and involve them in development measures such as job enlargement, job rotation or job enrichment. In addition, use further training programmes such as seminars, internal training courses and conferences to expand your employees' qualifications and make the best use of their strengths.
Hold regular discussions with your employees or conduct employee surveys. This will provide you with valuable insights into the mood and challenges of individual departments as well as indications of how to increase employee satisfaction, regardless of whether they are frequently or rarely absent. Also pay attention to Constructive feedback culture.
If absences are frequent or long, it is important to act proactively. Firstly, you should seek a dialogue with the employee concerned to understand the reasons for the absences. You can then work out possible solutions together to improve the situation. Always keep communication open and support the employee to enable a sustainable return to the team.
In a modern business world characterised by efficiency and optimal use of resources, effective absence management is essential. It goes beyond mere administration and has a significant impact on productivity, employee satisfaction and corporate culture.
Through proactive measures such as clear communication, individualised solutions and supportive return-to-work discussions, companies can not only reduce absenteeism, but also sustainably promote the commitment and well-being of their employees.
Relevant key figures are crucial in absence management. These include the total absence times of all employees in the company as well as their breakdown by department, plant or branch in order to enable targeted comparative values. Time-based comparisons such as monthly, quarterly and annual analyses of absences provide insights into trends and developments. This data is essential for optimising personnel requirements planning and helps to avoid idle times, especially in highly fluctuating areas such as sales.
In order to establish effective absence management, the use of software such as ZEP is advantageous. This enables you to manage absences directly and retrieve relevant data. Employees can report their absences, managers can confirm them and various absence categories can be defined. This means that detailed departmental data is available for analysis and evaluation in order to derive well-founded prevention measures.
As a rule, a company must accept up to 30 days of absence per year per employee. However, if an employee is off sick for more than six weeks a year, this can be problematic, especially if this happens over several years. In such cases, it is important to investigate what type of illness is causing the incapacity to work. Acute events such as an operation or a fracture can be assessed differently to chronic, long-term illnesses.
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