Effective Absence Management: Achieving Success with the Right Software
Discover how modern absence management software enables more efficiency.
Absence management is the cornerstone of ensuring smooth production processes. Whether it's planned vacation, sick leave, or extended absences like parental leave, a structured and flexible management approach is essential. Especially in large industrial companies, the targeted use of software is key to simplifying absence management, avoiding errors, and simultaneously increasing employee satisfaction. In this article, you'll learn what matters most in absence planning and how you can improve it.
Table of Contents
Types of Absences in the Workplace
Planned Absences
This includes traditional vacation requests, training sessions, and special leave. These absences are usually planned in advance but require a clear structure to avoid bottlenecks. Annual vacation planning, in particular, can quickly become complex in larger organizations.
Unplanned Absences
Sick leave and other short-term absences require rapid adjustments to the shift schedule. These unplanned absences are difficult to predict, occur frequently, and often have significant impacts on operations. Finding replacements at short notice is often time-consuming, especially when done via phone calls.
Other Absences
This category includes parental leave, caregiving for relatives, or extended sabbaticals. These absences are often associated with longer lead times and require long-term planning for coverage.
Challenges in Absence Management
Manual Processes
Using tools like Excel carries a high risk of errors and requires significant administrative effort due to the need for duplicate entries across multiple Excel sheets and third-party systems (e.g., HR software). Changes must be entered manually, consuming valuable time and resources.
Impact on Productivity
Without efficient absence management, staffing shortages can arise quickly. Short-term absences or increased demand often cannot be fully covered with inadequate software. A lack of visibility into absences frequently leads to a lack of transparency, making planning more difficult.
Risks to Employee Satisfaction
Inflexible absence planning can negatively affect employee satisfaction, especially when vacation requests are not accommodated, or transparency is lacking.
Duplicate Entries
In many companies, absences must be recorded multiple times, for example, across different systems or departments. This leads to redundant data entry, increased administrative effort, and a higher likelihood of errors, which reduces efficiency. A centralized software solution can eliminate duplicate entries and consolidate all relevant data in one place.
Benefits of Modern Absence Management Software
Automation
Digital tracking and automated approval processes reduce manual effort. With AI, modern shift scheduling software can algorithmically suggest suitable alternatives for replacements. Instead of endless phone calls, requests and approvals can be handled effortlessly via an app, streamlining the process.
Integration with Third-Party Systems
Interfaces with common tools like payroll, time tracking, and HR systems automate data exchange. This minimizes manual input and errors, as information like vacation entitlements, sick leave, or working hours is automatically synchronized. For instance, when an employee enters an absence in the HR system, it is automatically reflected in the shift scheduling system, allowing planners to respond quickly and easily.
Transparency and Clarity
Modern absence management software provides real-time visibility into all absences, presences, and other planning-relevant data. Instead of maintaining multiple Excel sheets for shift scheduling, absences, and time accounts, all data is consolidated in one place.
Time Savings and Error Reduction
Automation and integration significantly reduce the error rate in planning, such as during vacation calculations. Modern software ensures data remains synchronized across systems, eliminating errors during data transfers (e.g., due to differing data formats).
Employee Satisfaction
Employees can independently view and manage their requests, fostering transparency and participation. Modern absence management software also increases flexibility for both employees and planners, making it easy to handle short-term vacation requests seamlessly.
Best Practices for Efficient Absence Management
Clear Guidelines
Defined processes create transparency. Companies should establish rules for absence requests to avoid misunderstandings.
Regular Evaluations
Analyzing KPIs like absence rates helps identify patterns and take proactive measures. Modern software solutions offer extensive analytics capabilities to support this.
Employee Involvement
To enhance employee satisfaction and, in turn, the attractiveness of the company, the needs and preferences of employees should be considered during planning. Modern shift scheduling software makes this possible with AI, without compromising efficiency.
Independent Shift Swapping
Software solutions enable employees to swap shifts flexibly without manual intervention from HR or supervisors. Requests can be handled digitally as long as the requirements are met (e.g., qualifications of the swap partners). This increases employee flexibility, reduces administrative workload, and boosts team satisfaction.
Implementing Efficient Absence Management Successfully
Leading industrial companies like Siemens, ZF, and Bosch already manage their absences with shyftplan. As a provider of AI-powered workforce planning, shyftplan minimizes the manual effort required for absence management while addressing employee preferences and needs. Learn more about how shyftplan can bring greater efficiency and flexibility to your organization.
Absence management encompasses all processes necessary for planning, recording, and managing absences. This includes vacation days, sick leave, and special leave, as well as more complex absences such as parental leave or sabbaticals. The goal of absence management is to ensure transparent, efficient, and error-free handling of absences without disrupting operational processes.
Absence management software enables the automation of processes such as calculating vacation entitlements and approving absences. This reduces the error rate that often occurs with manual handling, allowing for more accurate planning with less administrative effort.
Yes, modern absence management software like shyftplan includes unlockable features for independent shift swapping. These features promote flexibility and reduce administrative effort, as no manual approvals from supervisors are required as long as the necessary conditions are met.
