Why have an absence policy? When employees are absent, it can hurt your business. This is especially true if your business has only a few employees. You want to make sure that employees are rarely absent so that you have few disruptions. An employee who is absent much of the time may not be a good investment of your employment dollars.

Along with the obvious costs of having to pay someone who isn't at work (if you offer sick leave benefits), there are also hidden costs of absenteeism that you can avoid by having an absenteeism rule or policy:

• lost productivity of the absent employee
• overtime for other employees who fill in
• decreased overall productivity for those employees
• any temporary help costs you might incur
• possible loss of business or dissatisfied customers
• problems with employee morale

If you decide to have a specific policy or rule regarding absence, here are some topics to consider in creating your policy:

• how to track absences
• what are the dollar costs of absenteeism
• how to handle excessive absences
• how to develop your absence policy