What Is The Current Practice Of Absence Management At A Large Local Authority (2008)

The purpose of this report is to outline the research findings in the case study of Birmingham City Council (BCC) where it examines the practices of this organisation, their approach against absence and what possible methods are used to tackle absenteeism. The literature review concerns with three main areas that have to be considered to manage absence effectively. Firstly, it provides details of measuring, monitoring and benchmarking work place absence behaviours. Secondly, identifies the causes of absences and what strategies can be used to due to the problem of absence. The literature review identifies the evidences of practices in managing absences that are helpful to assess the current practice of the case study organisation. The author has employed a case study research method focusing on learning about the organisational process by using secondary data collection method. The research concludes that the BCC focuses on the ‘softy’ strategies such as well-being concerned approaches rather than using disciplinary policies to deal with absenteeism. Findings also show that some current practices at the BCC could have a positive impact on absence management, such as the approaches of measuring and monitoring absence, well-being strategies, flexible working schemes and effective IT systems. However, the findings also identify the limitations of effective sickness absence management program at the BCC which include the lack of training for line managers and the lack of effective mechanism to identify the underlying causes of absence.