Absenteeism and Labour Turnover: Causes, Remedies and Case Study

This report delves into the critical issues of absenteeism and labour turnover within organizations, particularly focusing on the challenges faced by the BPO industry, exemplified by Access Healthcare. It examines the causes of absenteeism, including factors such as attachment to native places, workload, health issues, and personal habits. The report then explores various remedies to mitigate absenteeism, such as labour welfare measures, improved working environments, and adequate compensation. It also provides a detailed analysis of Access Healthcare's specific challenges, including high attrition rates and HR management issues. Furthermore, the report covers data collection methods, legal requirements for data storage, and the importance of data analysis in supporting HR practices. It also discusses the benefits of electronic and manual record-keeping systems and outlines strategies for controlling absenteeism through scientific analysis, employee surveys, and improved personnel policies. The report concludes with a call for proactive measures to enhance the quality of working life and foster a positive work environment.

Absenteeism and labour turnover are two main problems in organizations
As labour are from rural areas, continuity of their relations with rural area and
due to certain other reasons the rate of absenteeism is much higher among
them.
Generally absenteeism means to remain absent without informing (prior
permission) . Also defined as not to attend one’s work improperly or in
unauthorized manner. This absenteeism is voluntary also. Specific reason for
the absenteeism is not being mentioned by the labourer. General leaves are
not included in absenteeism. Absenteeism is such a situation that which can
be controlled or prevented.
Rate of Absenteeism
The rate of absenteeism can be known by dividing human hour loss by total
human working hours. Thus it is essential to know two main factors for
determining the rate of absenteeism. To know human loss hours it is essential
to know about number of absent workers, shifts and working hours. The
another factor is total working hours and total shifts during which work is being
done.
Main causes of absenteeism are the following:
Attachment with native: most of the indian industrial workers come from rural areas.
They have great feelings and attachment to their native, so they frequently visit there
to meet their relatives and friends.
Excess workload: people coming from rural area who work as industrial workers
have to work in congested and unnatural atmosphere. They cannot adjust
themselves in such condition continuously till a very long time. They have to work at
a specific place, in this work they do not have any interest. So they feel their duty as
very hard and burdensome.
Poor health and sickness:
Sickness occurs due to no nutritive food in the city, so labour become easily victim of
diseases like malaria, typhoid, diarrhea and stomach disease , absenteeism in india
due to illness is 4% .
Problems of residence: workers cannot accommodate their family in city due to high
rent in city, so they have to visit native frequently and cannot work regularly.
Bad habits and addicts: lonely workers become victim of gambling and drinking and
drugs etc
Accidents and mishaps: workers are scared about accidents and mishap due to the
use of modern machines in factories

Debt: Due to poverty indian workers become debtor and can not return this debt on
time and feel that creditors will come to their native and so they do not attend the
work
Misbehavior of employer or supervisor: this happens more often.
Fatigue and boredom: not familiar with working at long duty hours
Mental imbalance: mental imbalance may be by birth, such person cannot maintain
their performance in duty and family.
Duty and nightshift: most of the workers are not habituated with night shift duty
Remedies to reduce labour Absenteeism:
Rate of absenteeism can be reduced by labour welfare measures. They can be
made hale and happy by providing them facilities like sports and games , picnic,
entertainment etc. thus they will not feel fatigue or boredom and heavy work also.
They should be provided residential facility. if he could keep his family with him , then
his frequent native visit would be curtained.
Working environment must be improved. Labours should be given adequate wages
which will increase their income as well as willingness to work. Sufficient leave must
be granted. So they can take adequate rest.
Adequate steps should be taken to provide them protection against accidents and
illness.
Steps should be taken to protect them from misbehavior by employer , supervisor
and officers.
We are taking the example of BPO industry: Here ACCESS HEALTH CARE , a US
based health care BPO company has most of its employees in India. It faces
employee absenteeism remarkably. It is seen in youngsters who are normally
impatient for a better hike within short period, so they frequently quit a company if
they get a little more salary in other company. Gross labour attrition is very high in
BPO industry. Attrition rate for ACCESS HEALTH CARE is around 37%. The
attrition is 48% in call centers and 26-28% in non call centers. Leadership attrition is
2%.
The average age in BPO sector is 25.

Youngsters are impatient and have in their mind that they can jump around
companies and get high salaries.
One in every ten is absent at any point of time in this company.
Access Health care has around 6000 people in Chennai, Coimbatore, Pune and
Manila doing work for nearly 30 customers in the US. It recruit 400 employees every
month due to attrition
ACTIVITY 2
Restructuring is nothing but change management . it is all about what is working ,
what is not working and what needs improvement for better result. Employees may
be removed from the system if not found suitable for the organisation.
2.1Different ways access healthcare collects and records data,
The following are the sources of primary data :
Direct Observation Technique: obtrusive that everyone knows that they are being
observed and unobtrusive means people are unaware that they are being observed
for getting information about their behavior, reactions , physical settings etc...
Questionnaire : questionnaires as customary may be applied by personal
interviewing . questions are correctly phrased and administered . it may be advisable
to divide questionnaire into specific sections to be answered by, for example
financial , technical or commercial executives. This calls for considerable skill in
identifying and encouraging these various respondents to participate in a survey. It
also tends to increase significantly costs and the time involved in collection of data.
Personal Interviewing :
It should be viewed as a task demanding special skills , these may include
considerable technical background so that interviewers who may conduct an open
style approach are able to win the confidence of industrial and technical informants.
Secondary data refer to existing information which is useful for a specific survey. The
type of data may be available internally and externally. Company check their internal
routine records . external secondary data are available from government reports ,
official statistics etc…
Two reasons why it is necessary:

Absenteeism is a major problem because man days are lost , cost for replacement
labour and administrative cost for managing absenteeism, other indirect costs due to
absenteeism are low quality work of replacement workers or overtime of other
present employees . safety training costs to replacement workers, troubleshooter for
Hr personnel for searching for suitable replacement labours.
Absenteeism costs companies in lost productivity, wages, poor quality of work.
Because managers need to know which employees are working at what time and
when he will finish duty. The time of work and time of no work.
Organization with good reporting system in attendance matter is through the use of
timecard , scheduling ,
This information can determine whether the business is on the right track and it .
Attendance monitoring helps company in finding punctual employee and helps in
deciding his suitability for new project.
2.2 There are legal requirements that an organization must take into account when
recording , storing and accessing the data for the three areas : staff turnover,
absenteeism and outcomes of staff survey.
Confidentiality of client records : Rigorous respect for issues of confidentiality is
fundamental to the ethical practice of counseling and psychotherapy. Practitioners
store client records securely at all times to ensure confidentiality. Access to client
records should be in keeping with the principles of privacy and confidentiality.
The practitioner who created the client records is responsible for ensuring the
client’s privacy and confidentiality are maintained.
Records may be created and maintained in a variety of media , including electronic
systems so long as their utility , confidentiality and durability are assured.
2.3 Types of data collected for three types of data collected can support HR
practices and the management team when restructuring
A Healthy Workplace reduces sickness resulting reduction in absenteeism and it
avoids employment of temporary staff for employing in place of persons taking sick
leave. (panneerselvam, 2013).
In Business process outsourcing industry like access healthcare there are some hr
challenges which are as follows:

Managing people within a defined timeframe. Due to high labour turnover in BPO
industry supply and demand are not balanced and this is a major challenge . As
attrition rate is high recruitment is done frequently and hr faces great difficulties in
finding suitable replacement candidates on a regular basis.
Human resource functions is a very important function of an organization. It is vital
and inter related with every departments .
Motivating workforce is crucial for the survival in the market due to change in
technology and knowhow, talented manpower is an asset for a successful company.
Hr role becomes critical in managing a pool of talented professional and retaining
the best people available . Recruitment has become a major function of hr and to
make people a perfect fit for their jobs is also a major job for hr.
2.4 Data Storage
System used for recording and storing data are electronic and manual record
keeping.
Electronic back up system is done to ensure records are safely stored and regularly
backed up daily. Copies are stored in separate location to ones’ business in case of
fire, theft and natural disaster.
For Small business , cheapest back up option are CDs’ & Pen drive, Memory card ,
external hard disk for large amount of data .
Cloud back up can be used to describe the use of third party for your storage and
computing needs
Manual record keeping is simple paper base record keeping system and it is less
expensive to set up
Benefits of electronic record keeping :
Information is complete and records can be accessed easily via a variety of medium
to those who require it. Data can be password protected , backing up data regularly
can eliminate the loss of information from fire and theft. Time and space are save.
Benefits of manual record keeping : it is less expensive to set up and correcting
entries may be easier with manual systems. Risk of corrupted data is much less.

Data loss is less of a risk if records are stored in a fireproof environment. Problems
with duplicate copies of same records are generally avoided.
2.5 The task before Access healthcare to control absenteeism are challenging. The
problem should be studied , analysed , remedied and confronted on a scientific basis
at the unit level.
Periodic collection , analysis and interpretation of absenteeism statistics would go a
long way in throwing adequate light on the trends and styles of absenteeism .
attitude and morale survey would also reveal worker’s expectation from their work
and work environment, nature and extent of the gap between employees perceived
expectation and actual job satiscation, importance of leisure in relation to regular
work . this process of understanding and appreciating the socio economic
demographinc , cultural and behavioural background of employees would make it
convenient and feasible in creating an atmosphere unfavourable to absentism.
The personnel policies of the organization should aim at creating and promoting
better quality of working life. These policies should be instrumental in selling
progressive work related behavior such as better sense of commitment , involvement
and dedication to the job and job environment , acceptable standards of work ethics,
need for regularity in attendance , discipline with reference to obtaining prior sanction
of leave from the management , soliciting better cooperation and team effort in
establishing attendance culture in the organization.
It is high time to realize the imperative need for providing voluntary health, safety and
welfare measures in addition to the statutory requirements. This welfare oriented
investment in human resource would certainly pay rich dividends in reducing the
problem of absenteeism in the long run.
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