Out Sick: New Tools Help Companies Better Manage Employee AbsencesOut Sick: New Tools Help Companies Better Manage Employee Absences

By some estimates, absenteeism costs U.S. companies up to $800 each year per employee, with up to 15% of payroll costs spent on personnel who are out on vacation, sick, on disability or maternity leave, or missing from work for other reasons.

Kronos Inc., a maker of human-capital-management software, recently unveiled an absence-management product initiative that includes software modules to help companies get a better handle on employee attendance and absentee issues.

In June, Kronos will release Workforce Leave, a software product that can help companies track, enforce, and manage employee-leave policies. That software will complement Kronos' recently released Workforce Attendance software, which helps employers manage disciplinary and reward policies related to attendance. Both modules are components of Kronos' Workforce Central workforce-management suite.

Many companies have a difficult time accurately tracking and managing employee absences because often that information is manually documented or kept in a number of different software "silos," Kronos VP Michael DiPietro says.

Banner Health, which operates hospitals and other health-care facilities in seven states, uses Kronos Workforce Central software modules and plans to roll out the absenteeism-management applications early next year to better track its employee' leaves and other absences.

Annually, approximately 5% of Banner's 26,000 employees take time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act, says Sandy Hughes, Banner's benefits support-services manager. FMLA is a federal law that requires covered employers to grant eligible workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period to deal with a serious medical condition or to care for a sick family member or new child.

Each year, FMLA absenteeism costs Banner at least $900,000 in pay and benefits, not counting expenses for hiring replacement nurses and other staff, Hughes says. Those FMLA costs also exclude costs for other kinds of employee absenteeism, such as regular sick days, vacation, jury duty, workers' compensation, and bereavement, Hughes says.

Banner estimates the costs of FMLA workers could be even higher than $900,000 and may include at least another 1% of Banner workers whose leave time isn't accurately tracked, Hughes says.

For instance, when a worker takes time off for an illness eligible under FMLA, such as reoccurring migraine headaches, that time off may not occur in one solid block of days, weeks, or months, and may in fact be spread out over a 12-month period. If an absence isn't properly documented when the employee with migraines calls in sick during the year, the FMLA total time-off record can become inaccurate. By managing FMLA and other employee absences with help from Kronos' software, Banner expects to improve its tracking of FMLA and other time off, she says.

Hughes predicts the software could also help Banner reduce FMLA costs by one-third, in part by allowing the company to be more proactive in assisting employees with health or other problems. For instance, if the software notes that a sick employee isn't expected to be examined by a medical specialist for several weeks, Banner could help arrange for another specialist to see the employee sooner, perhaps helping the worker get treated and return to work quicker, Hughes says.

In addition to recording FMLA absences more accurately, the software allows an "E-mail blast" to be sent out to specified supervisors and other related managers informing them of an employee's absence and possible need to reschedule other staff. The absentee-management modules integrate with other Kronos workforce-management software, such as employee-scheduling applications. "Communication is key" in effective staff management, says Greg Morris, Banner's senior business analyst for financial applications.

Banner plans to begin rolling out the absentee-management modules next March, soon after the company expects to complete implementation of Kronos' employee-scheduling modules. That software will replace a combination of manual processes, spreadsheets, and smaller software packages that are used at various Banner facilities, Morris says.

Pricing of the Kronos software varies, a company spokeswoman says, and is based on number of employees and other factors.