What makes this so is the fact that clients have high expectations and reliability is a necessary part of fulfilling those expectations. In addition, there often a direct revenue loss to the consultancy. Add in the fact clients often engage with consultants for hard-to-find or replace skills means that absenteeism affects both consultancy and client in a way that it might not do, in a different organisation type.

Reasons for Absenteeism in Consultancy.

There are a number for general reasons for absenteeism that are common across all industries. This includes, long term health problems, mismatch with management style or values,  personal problems, general job dissatisfaction and in some cases the view as any allowed time off as and entitlement to time off.

However, there are several specific reasons that are specific to consultancy. These include:

• Stressful client and deliveries
• Difficulty in managing the consultancy lifestyle
• Balancing client, consultant, and individual needs
• Unsuitable or unfulfilling assignments

Knowing these consultant specific reasons can help in understanding and then managing absence.

Measuring Organisational Absenteeism.

A CIPD survey in 2018 measured average absences at 6.9 days (or just less than 3%). As time tracking is a fundamental tool for consultancies, primarily for invoicing purposes then data can be gathered from here or from a HRIS. Tracking, summarising and managing activities can then be performed. Data to collect includes

• Date of start and end of absences
• Team / Area / Project / Group
• Reason for absence
• Number of occasions of absence over a period (say the last 52 weeks)
• Organisational average absence per month, quarter and year) in days and as a percentage
• Whether the absence affected revenue generation activities

The Bradford Index.

The Bradford index is specific measure which helps define the impact of short term absenteeism. It is predicated on the basis that multiple short absences are more damaging than longer single absences and also a better indicator of absenteeism. The formula is as follows

A higher number indicates a larger absentee problem

A HRIS or business data system can be configured to report on the Bradford score for employees and a trigger or alert set once the value goes past a certain value. Through this, early intervention can happen and the manager can then move to the next stage of managing absenteeism.

Managing absenteeism.

Once absenteeism has been recognised in an individual there are a number of methods to be tried. These include but are not limited to.

• Addressing the root cause
• Flexible working
• Setting and communicating targets
• Ensuring accountability through process

Individual and group measurement should continue to understand if the management activities are effective over the short and long term.