Absence Percentage Calculator

Here are the five steps to calculate the absence rate.

1. Decide which time period you will examine. 
2. Get the total number of employees (or the average number of employees if the number wasn’t constant) during the given period. 
3. Get the total number of workdays — excluding weekends and holidays — during that period. 
4. Add the total number of absence days during the period. 
5. Plug these figures into the formula (or the calculator on this page) and calculate the absence rate.

The main work for calculating the absence rate is determining the figures, such as the number of days missed, to plug into the formula. Let’s do an example calculation together.

The Good Cup is a chain of coffee shops in the Midwest. Management wants to know the absence rate for the year’s first quarter. During that time, the company had an average of 139 employees over the 90 days in the quarter. Collectively, employees missed a total of 463 total workdays.

Let’s plug those figures into the absence rate formula:

3.7% = 463 / (139 × 90) × 100

So The Good Cup has an absence rate of 3.7 percent, which means the company has a slightly higher-than-average rate of absenteeism. 

Tracking and analyzing how absenteeism works at your company provides the information needed to construct absence policies that help your organization minimize the cost of absenteeism, reduce unplanned absenteeism, and increase workforce productivity. A good absence management plan does this by outlining clear expectations and including ample support for employees’ physical and mental health.

On a smaller scale, you can spot troubling trends quickly when you track absenteeism at a business. For example, you may notice absenteeism rise after onboarding a new manager. That could indicate onboarding issues or your new hire’s culture fit. 

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average absence rate in the nation is 3.2 percent. But absence rates vary depending on the industry, location, and company culture. It’s also important to base absenteeism on the company’s historical trends.

For a long time, business schools have taught that an absence percentage of 1.5 or less is good. And anything over two percent was considered high absenteeism. This translates to 3 to 4 unplanned days per year for a full-time employee. But the past few years have altered what businesses and employees think is reasonable for sick leave. This could significantly affect the future of “healthy” sickness absence benchmarks. 

Absenteeism is the rate at which employees take unplanned absences from work. The cost of absence is high — $225.8 billion annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the cost of presenteeism (being at work for more hours than required, especially when sick) is also high. Some estimate at least $150 billion a year.

So the best absence management strategies mitigate the effect of unplanned absences (absenteeism) and lower the instances of people coming to work while they’re sick (presenteeism). Strategies that don’t account for the related issue of presenteeism may be more likely to create an environment where people are encouraged to come to work sick.

Companies with solid attendance management strategies understand that you cannot improve absenteeism without addressing presenteeism. 

There’s a nearly endless number of ways to lower a high absence rate.  Below are the most effective ways to help you move the needle—these strategies

1. Get to the root cause: What is the reason for your company’s high absenteeism rate? You can’t solve the problem without finding the root cause(s). 
2. Engage your workforce: Investing in training programs, team building, community involvement, and other practices can help you build a company culture that inspires employees to take ownership of their roles in the business. 
3. Build a nurturing company culture: Every detail of your business is part of the company culture, not just human resources. Everything from the design of the workplace to how people take their lunch breaks can add to or detract from a positive culture. 
4. Encourage open communication: Open communication begins with trust, which is best offered top-down. That means ensuring your management team has high emotional intelligence and communication skills.
5. Focus on well-being: There are a million ways to make wellness and well-being a center of company culture and to show employees you care about their health. 
6. Implement flexible work schedules (when possible): This is especially important for businesses that employ people with childcare or other family responsibilities. Flexible scheduling and remote work let people work when they’re most productive and reduce workplace stress. 
7. Revise leave allowances: Your company may not offer enough paid time off (or flex time off) to fit the average person’s needs. 
8. Encourage employees to stay home when they’re sick: This works best in a top-down fashion. Leadership needs to demonstrate that taking leave when sick is valuable. Businesses also need to provide enough sick days to employees. 
9. Make absence policies easy to understand (and find): Ensure that all employees know the rules for taking leave and where to look up the rules if they forget. 
10. Regularly check employee engagement: Is your workforce engaged and satisfied? Anonymous surveys are one way to find out. Businesses that encourage direct employee feedback are more likely to create better employee environments. 
11. Leverage HR tools to track attendance: Many employee management tools can help you track your stats. When you pay attention to the numbers, you can be more proactive about addressing problems as soon as they arise.