How Cezanne HR software can help you tackle unacceptable absence levels in summary:
Managing employee absenteeism can be one of HR’s biggest headaches, especially when individual sickness absence quietly creeps from occasional days to a pattern that disrupts productivity and team morale. This article explores how effective absence management starts with having clear, reliable data, and how tools like Cezanne’s sickness absence tracking make it simpler to spot trends early, trigger alerts when thresholds are hit, and support fair, fact-based conversations with employees.
The blog outlines a real workplace example where managers used Cezanne’s absence calendars and Bradford Factor reporting to highlight recurring absence patterns and confidently plan a constructive return-to-work discussion. With everything logged in one place, organisations can follow best practice, document agreements, and ensure consistency in their absence policy.
Beyond the tech, the article reinforces the importance of balancing productivity with empathy. HR professionals must navigate genuine health issues, stress, caring responsibilities, and broader wellbeing challenges — all of which can drive repeated absence. Clear processes, supportive conversations, and regular data reviews can help reduce absence levels while maintaining trust.
If your organisation is looking to reduce the cost of absenteeism, improve visibility, and create a fairer, more transparent approach to managing absence, this guide offers a practical starting point.
Talking with a customer the other day, they mentioned that they’d found the calendar overview feature in Cezanne’s HR software to be really helpful. Naturally, I asked, “what’s your favourite part?”
They’d had an issue with a long-standing employee who’d started to take an increasing amount of time off sick. Initially, it had been a day or two every couple of months, but the frequency had started to build. Since the employee was part of a small, but important team in the business, these absences were having an impact not just on the bottom line, but on the motivation of the others working with them.
In a previous world, when they’d been keeping track of absences using paper forms, they’d probably not have noticed. At least, not until others in the team complained. However, they’d set up Cezanne’s Absence Management Software module to notify them if the number of incidents of absence had reached a certain threshold. Once this happened, the system had flagged it up, giving them the chance to sit down and have a conversation with the employee.
That conversation was made a whole lot easier because the employee could ‘see’ with them the number of days they’d taken off sick over the last few years, and how the frequency has increased. I didn’t ask how the conversation turned out, but it sounded as if the discussion was constructive and took everyone in the right direction.
The facts to support better conversations
It’s never easy to have a conversation about absences levels with an employees, especially if you are not entirely sure of the facts. With Cezanne, you are able to build up a record of sickness absences as they happen, and benefit from notifications if key thresholds are passed (e.g. Bradford Factor, number of incidents/number of days). Armed with the information, you are in a much better position to talk to employees, and work together to find a solution that works for them, and for the business.
And, once you’ve decided on the next steps, you can document and record what’s been agreed, so it’s easy for everyone involved to refer back to.
Need more guidance? Both ACAS and Xpert HR provide useful advice about how to deal with employees absences.
Sue Lingard
Sue studied Personnel Management at the London School of Economics before taking on management roles in the travel, recruitment and finally HR software industry. She's particularly interested in how technologies enable HR teams - and the people they support - to work better together.
