The main resource for a company is its personnel. Their performance & talent are what make your project & business profitable. Consequently, to complete the projects on schedule while staying within budget, project managers must make sure that they are well. The outcome of your initiatives is determined by your productivity & resource management practices. For instance, the growth of a project would be hampered if an extremely skilled person takes an unplanned absence while it is ongoing.
Furthermore, if this work relies on others, it could result in a cascading impact that will terminate the project. In addition to recorded sick days and scheduled leaves, extended absences should raise red flags. The project manager’s responsibility is to identify the underlying reason for irregular absenteeism & put suitable strategies such as an absence management system in place to prevent it. The impacts, reasons, and solutions for handling unplanned absence leaves during work are all covered in detail in this article.
What Impact Does Unplanned Absence Have on the Project’s Well-Being?
A project is broken up into smaller, mostly interdependent activities. Let’s take the scenario where you are engaged in a software development project. Each job depends on the success of the others, from creating the first version to coding and testing the final product. You cannot code without a basic design in place, and you also cannot test something without a code. Considering that each duty is vital and depends heavily on the others, consider the scenario in which your resource—your coder—unexpectedly took a lengthy leave of absence. If you don’t have a backup plan, the growth of your project will be hindered, leading to needless delays & overspending. To keep the project moving forward, project managers occasionally assign too much work to one resource. Employee exhaustion and overuse will result, which will lower the resource’s health score.
Best Practices For Handling Unplanned Absence Leaves:
Establish Explicit Rules and Guidelines for Taking Time Off from Work:
Workers must be aware of who to contact when to contact them (e.g., by text message, email, or phone call), and the deadline to notify them of an absence (e.g., by 930am on the day of absence). The procedures for handling chronic absenteeism and the prerequisites for medical certifications need to be made clear. It’s crucial to be consistent and fair. The system itself must be deserving of respect if you wish for people to respect it.
Offer Tangible Support:
Provide real assistance to people who are ill or injured and can’t return to work for a few days or longer. The entire team should send a card. Give the company a call and enquire about any assistance that the organisation may provide. Tell the person how much you value and miss them. Whether they’re ill or hurt, most people feel susceptible, so a kind remark could go a long way. Practically speaking, it’s also probably going to make them want to go back to work.
Make A Backup Plan for the Important Things:
It is also possible to address the unplanned absence in the project planning phase. Every project includes certain essential activities that must be completed to avoid the project coming to a complete stop in the middle. You may create a backup plan for these crucial jobs whenever you are creating your project plan as well as allocating resources to the tasks. Using the same software development project as an instance, managers can reserve a generic or parked resource for the coding work. In this instance, you already have a backup plan in place in case the coder needs to take a leave of absence. It won’t create any delays and will continue the project.
Turn on Managers and Supervisors to the Best Practices for Cutting Down on Sick Leave:
Teach youngsters that concentrating just on lost time injuries (LTIs) won’t provide the desired outcomes. Managers and supervisors who show their employees empathy, trust, and encouragement typically achieve better results compared to others who are only concerned with hitting their KPIs (key performance indicators) as quickly as possible.
Final Words – Reducing Unplanned Absence:
It’s how you may combat absenteeism by putting in place a strong tool. Furthermore, individuals may reconsider their managerial strategy to concentrate on minimising the leaves.
