Absenteeism: Causes, Impact on Retail Business, H&M Strategies

This report investigates employee absenteeism within the retail industry, focusing on its causes and impact on business performance and productivity, using H&M as a case study. It identifies key causes such as low employee engagement, decreased morale, and inflexible working schedules. The repo...Read More

Research and Study
Skills Assessment One
(Causes of employee absenteeism and their impact over
business performance and productivity within retail industry)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS PROBLEM WITH SUPPORTING DATA AND TRENDS..3
BACKGROUND OF THE BUSINESS PROBLEM.......................................................................4
OUTLINE OF RESEARCH AIM, OBJECTIVES AND QUESTIONS.........................................4
LIMITATIONS AND SCOPE OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH..............................................4
CRITICAL REVIEW KEY LITERATURE....................................................................................5
PLAN USING GANTT CHART.....................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS PROBLEM WITH SUPPORTING DATA
AND TRENDS
Running an organisation in current time is not an easy job because it is made up of people
who have different needs, expectations and aspirations. Employee absenteeism is one of the
issues of workplace. An HR manager is responsible individual who grants leave to the
employees working in the workplace. For a manager, it is typical to identify one or two empty
seats in the workplace (Karimbil, 2019). They approve leave applications of employees or
sometimes employees take leave without any prior notice. Employee absenteeism is quite normal
in the workplace because every individual has their own problems and needs to take leave. But,
things may become unusual or unacceptable when unexcused absences increase. It becomes
alarming when the same workforce start making excessive absences without any proper reason
or prior notice.
In simpler language, employee absenteeism refers to the frequent absence of workforce
from the work. This absence is generally classified as a habitual absence that does not include
authorised leave or paid time off. For an employee it is not easy to show up where they do not
find any interest. Thus, companies are focusing over recognising the fact and identifying the
reasons why employees are not taking interest in coming to their workplace regularly. Thus,
companies form and make leave policies for emergency and health issues. However, when these
off days are often, it becomes a challenge and is absenteeism. Employee absenteeism is one of
the serious concerns (Kaiser, 2018).
Unscheduled absences from work negatively impact both the employees and employers.
Employers are generally left understaffed in the organisation when workforce starts making
excessive unexcused absences. It eventually increases the liability of employers in the type of
additional costs of labours they they require for enduring to cover up the lost performance and
productivity because of missed working hours of absent employees. It increases the workload on
the remaining employees, which ultimately creates workplace dissatisfaction and many other
challenges related to employees. Thus, when employees take consistent leaves, an organisation
loses its value in the market.

BACKGROUND OF THE BUSINESS PROBLEM
The present investigation focuses over carrying out in-depth information the issue of
employee absenteeism in the organisation (Nunes and et. al., 2018). This problem is faced by
organisation because they are not able to determine the needs and expectations of employees.
Thus, it increases employee absenteeism in the organisation. Employee absenteeism is directly
linked with the decreased employee performance and reduced productivity of the whole
organisation (Salih, 2018).
OUTLINE OF RESEARCH AIM, OBJECTIVES AND QUESTIONS
Research Aim:
To identify the causes of employee absenteeism and their impact over business
performance and productivity within retail industry. A study on H&M
Research Objectives:
 To determine the causes of employee absenteeism within H&M
 To evaluate the impact of employee absenteeism over business productivity and
performance of H&M To examine the strategies adopted by H&M for reducing employee absenteeism in the
workplace
Research Questions:
 What are the causes of employee absenteeism within H&M?
 What is the impact of employee absenteeism over business productivity and performance
of H&M?
 What are the strategies adopted by H&M for reducing employee absenteeism in the
workplace?
LIMITATIONS AND SCOPE OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH
Limitations of the research
The current study is based upon secondary research methods for the collection of
information to meet research aim, objectives and questions. The major limitation faced by
researcher is identifying right type of secondary source to accumulate relevant and appropriate
information (Taibi and et. al., 2021). The other limitation faced by investigator is identifying

right secondary source to collect up-to-date trends, facts and figures about the proposed research
topic.
Scope of the research
The present study has focused over using qualitative research methods for the
accumulation and analysis of information about the proposed topic of investigation. Under
qualitative research method, secondary sources are used (Bose and Emirates, 2018). With the
help of secondary sources, researcher has focused on carrying out in-depth information about the
research topic (Wahid and et. al., 2019). Thus, this shows that the scope of the current study is
not limited because it does not include any group of human participants for the collection of
information.
CRITICAL REVIEW KEY LITERATURE
Causes of employee absenteeism within H&M
According to Tarro and et. al., (2020), every company has its own ways and methods to
manage various functions and operations of the organisation. However, it is not possible for
company to manage every function effectively and efficiently. Thus, employee absenteeism is
one of the issues that gets attention in the workplace when it creates some serious consequence
for the business. Some of the main reasons of employee absenteeism within the workplace are:
Lower employee engagement: Workforce who feels disengaged in the workplace find
different ways to miss their responsibilities and work. This shows that they do not enjoy their
work as well as they do not feel appreciated and all these ultimately result in showing up of
employees difficult.
Decreased employee morale: The other major reason that increases employee
absenteeism in the workplace is lower employee morale. Employees always look up for work
environment where they can easily seek job satisfaction. Negative work culture becomes one of
the reasons of reduced employee morale. Thus, when employees do not get along with the
culture of the company they become unproductive and take more leaves.
Lack of flexible working schedule: Another major cause of employee absenteeism is
lack of flexible working schedule. Every individual has own personal and social commitments
that they require to abide by to enjoy work-life balance. Thus, lack of flexible working schedule
makes employee to miss out on operations and work.
Impact of employee absenteeism over business productivity and performance of H&M

According to MacGregor and Cunningham (2018), employee absenteeism refers to the
situation in an organisation that directly impacts business productivity and performance of the
organisation. Unscheduled absences of employees from work or operations negatively impact
both the employees and employers. Employees are generally left understaffed in an organisation
when workers begin making excessive unexcused absences. It directly increases the liability of
employees because it increases the labour cost of employers that they require. When cost of the
organisation is increased due to employees taking leaves continuously in the organisation. This
reduces the productivity and performance of the whole organisation as well as employees who
are still working in the workplace. Absenteeism of employees impacts productivity of employees
who are still working in the organisation because they get burden of work. When existing
employees get burden their performance and productivity level get decreased because they are
aware that they are are doing additional work and they are not going to get any additional pay for
this additional work. Thus, employee absenteeism directly decreases productivity of employees
who are regular in the workplace. Employee absenteeism has direct impact over profitability
level of the organisation. It impacts profit level of the organisation in two ways: firstly, increased
costs decrease profit margins unless revenues rise and secondly, absenteeism decreases revenue
if workforce with particular roles are not present. Thus, employee absenteeism has direct impact
over company, team and other employees who are regular in the workplace.
Strategies adopted by H&M for reducing employee absenteeism in the workplace
According to Ali Shah and et. al., (2020), employee absenteeism is one of the major
issues in the workplace because it negatively impacts the performance of employees and
productivity of the organisation. An organisation uses different strategies to reduce employee
absenteeism in the workplace which are:
Improving employee and workplace well-being: Satisfied workforce are those who have
great excitement to reach at their workplace. Thus, company provides physical and mental well-
being so that productive workforce can be created.
Providing rewards and recognition: An organisation offers a reward program for
employees so that they can maintain good attendance in the organisation. Excellent staff
management simply starts by recognising the good work of each employee. Thus, this improves
the feeling of employees and creates a sense of ownership.

Setting disciplinary consequences and procedures: An organisation uses this method for
setting trigger mechanisms for reviewing attendance considering a time and attendance system. It
helps in conducting disciplinary or capability processes for absences in the workplace. This
assists in taking necessary actions at right time.
PLAN USING GANTT CHART
Gantt chart refers to the time scheduling chart that divides activities and tasks with
appropriate time interval. This chart is divided into two significant parts: in first part all activities
are included and in the second part every activity is scheduled with proper time duration. The
benefit of using this chart is that researcher completes each activity in a systematic manner.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ali Shah and et. al., 2020. An enhanced deep neural network for predicting workplace
absenteeism. Complexity, 2020.
Bose, I. and Emirates, U.A., 2018. Employee empowerment and employee performance: An
empirical study on selected banks in UAE. Journal of Applied Management and
Investments, 7(2), pp.71-82.
Kaiser, C.P., 2018. Absenteeism, presenteeism, and workplace climate: A taxonomy of
employee attendance behaviors. Economics & Business Journal: Inquiries &
Perspectives, 9(1), pp.69-86.
Karimbil, M.R., 2019. A study on employee absenteeism in today’s workplace. Journal of the
Gujarat Research Society, 21(17), pp.273-279.
MacGregor, J. and Cunningham, J.B., 2018. To be or not to be… at work while ill: A choice
between sickness presenteeism and sickness absenteeism in the workplace. Journal of
Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance.
Nunes and et. al., 2018. The effect of employee assistance services on reductions in employee
absenteeism. Journal of Business and Psychology, 33(6), pp.699-709.
Salih, H.B., 2018. Staff absenteeism: The case of wa municipal education office of the Ghana
education service. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 6(8), pp.1-14.
Taibi and et. al., 2021. A systematic overview on the risk effects of psychosocial work
characteristics on musculoskeletal disorders, absenteeism, and workplace
accidents. Applied ergonomics, 95, p.103434.
Tarro and et. al., 2020. Effectiveness of workplace interventions for improving absenteeism,
productivity, and work ability of employees: a systematic review and meta-analysis of
randomized controlled trials. International journal of environmental research and public
health, 17(6), p.1901.
Wahid and et. al., 2019, January. Predicting absenteeism at work using tree-based learners.
In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Machine Learning and Soft
Computing (pp. 7-11).