Keep in mind again in major college when sure children acquired stickers for Glorious Attendance? It all the time appeared like such a straightforward get—how onerous was it to point out as much as college day by day?
Enter actual life, stuffed with every kind of sudden occurances: a missed bus, a flat tire, an influence outage that causes your alarm to not go off concurrently your cellphone mysteriously resets itself so that you miss that alarm too… And whereas there aren’t any stickers for excellent attendance as an grownup, it is fairly vital to, , present as much as work on time.
Whether or not it’s considered one of life’s oh-so-annoying wrenches or an worker who repeatedly and persistently misses shifts or reveals up late, this is the reason, as a enterprise proprietor, you want an attendance coverage. And fortunate for you, we’ve acquired a free attendance coverage template included just under.
Forward, we’ll deal with all issues attendance. You’ll discover tips on what an attendance coverage needs to be what to think about placing into the coverage, if there are any legal guidelines or laws to be conscious of, and find out how to make the coverage inclusive of all worker wants.
Let’s dive in—so long as you’re not speculated to be someplace, okay?
Even with one of the best communication for what time workers must arrive for his or her shifts, it’s nonetheless vital to have an attendance coverage in place.
What’s an attendance coverage?
An attendance coverage is a authorized doc between the worker and employer. It outlines some, if not all, of the next:
- Firm guidelines and procedures round shifts and attending work.
- What’s thought-about absenteeism (lacking shifts).
- Penalties or disciplinary motion (together with dismissal) round persistently arriving late or lacking work with out discover or an inexpensive justification.
- What to do in extraordinary circumstances (e.g. emergencies, public transit strikes, pure disasters, and so on.)
Mainly, an attendance coverage helps your enterprise and workers have a transparent understanding round any occasion that impacts exhibiting up for a shift, parrticularly when inconvenient occasions happen. As a result of even a enterprise’s most devoted workers—otherwise you your self—are generally late for a shift or need to miss work altogether for pressing issues. An attendance coverage retains a framework for find out how to proceed.
With actually clear outlines, a strong coverage can and may grow to be a part of your enterprise’s guiding ideas and onboarding. It needs to be easy-to-use, comprehensible, and take each worker welfare and enterprise wants into consideration.
How do you write an attendance coverage?
Creating and implementing a proper attendance coverage could rely upon the scale of your enterprise. When you’re a small enterprise beginning out, there could also be just a few non-negotiables you ask your workers to bear in mind in relation to work attendance or time without work (and even shift swapping).
If your enterprise is rising, and also you’re onboarding increasingly more workers, it’s most likely finest to place one thing official in place to confer with, and create a way of equality throughout the board for workers.
At its core, an attendance coverage helps hold workers protected whereas permitting enterprise operations to run as easily and productively as attainable.
Under are just a few concerns to bear in mind when writing out a model new attendance coverage to your small enterprise.
Perceive your enterprise’s wants.
Nobody is aware of your enterprise higher than you. What your enterprise’s total objectives are and methods to get there’ll assist inform your attendance coverage. If having workers on-site or accessible on-line is important to operating your enterprise successfully and easily, that can should be constructed into each the way you schedule your workers and your attendance coverage. Operational wants and productiveness objectives (together with each day gross sales objectives) are all components into crafting a helpful attendance coverage.
Keep in mind: whilst you wish to be thoughtful of your staff members and sudden occurances, it’s nonetheless okay to steadiness the wants of your rising enterprise.
Take into account the aims of an attendance coverage.
What do you and your workers get out of getting an attendance coverage? This query needs to be the inspiration of your attendance coverage and what you embrace. If, for instance, there’s numerous worker absenteeism at your enterprise, this coverage will give a written and authorized discover of your rights as an employer to implement within the enterprise you run.
On the flip facet, what if in case you have workers with medical wants who require time without work however could not have numerous flexibility to seek out somebody to cowl their shift? An attendance coverage can embrace particular case eventualities that shield these workers, which your staff will admire.
Make it straightforward to know.
An attendance coverage doesn’t should be prolonged or written in complicated language. Outline elements of the attendance coverage—like tardiness or no-call, no-shows—in plain language, together with the implications that may happen if workers don’t take their work obligations significantly.
Maintain it easy.
An attendance coverage doesn’t should be overly sophisticated. We’ll undergo an instance of an attendance coverage additional on this information however the major level to bear in mind is simplifying the place attainable. Maintain the format tight: overview, aims, attendance definitions, penalties, and so on.
Have a option to monitor worker time.
Earlier than you begin writing an attendance coverage, be sure you have efficient and environment friendly time attendance software program that workers can simply use to clock in and clock out of their shifts. Monitoring worker time is critical to know if workers are late, absent, or simply not clocking in when they need to be.
Tip: Define clear expectations round workarounds like buddy punching, since regardless that somebody could also be ‘on the clock’ on paper, you’re nonetheless brief a staff member. Search for a time-tracking app that gives each staff member with their very own log ins and even GPS monitoring to keep away from this type of time theft.
Regulate your coverage over time if wanted.
It’s price occupied with your attendance coverage as a residing and respiratory doc. Outdated practices don’t do anybody any favors. There are numerous inclusive concerns to be made in right this moment’s work world that prioritize an worker’s bodily or psychological well being whereas additionally guaranteeing your enterprise can hold functioning.
Replace and modify the coverage, and get worker suggestions and log off when it’s good to.
Legal guidelines and laws to think about when creating an attendance coverage.
In the case of an attendance coverage, there’s no Honest Labor Requirements Act (FLSA) regulation, together with how employers decide and execute on disciplinary actions. However in relation to paying workers and time retaining, that’s the place the FLSA has some regulatory advantage—and that may impression attendance. Correct data of time labored and paying accordingly for that’s a part of the FLSA, inclusive of rounding time as much as the closest 5 minute mark or quarter of an hour.
It’s price referencing the Household Medical Depart Act (FMLA) and the People with Disabilities Act (ADA) in your attendance as authorized concerns to your workers. These are instance of different federal legal guidelines that hold staff with extraordinary circumstances or totally different lived experiences protected of their employment.
What to incorporate in your worker attendance coverage.
Now that we’ve gone via the necessities of what an attendance coverage is and a few significant concerns, let’s perceive what needs to be included, particularly whenever you begin to consider customizing your personal attendance coverage template.
The specifics of the coverage could change from enterprise to enterprise, and is dependent upon your enterprise measurement, together with the variety of workers. Consider this a common information on the vital facets to incorporate in your worker attendance coverage.
Overview of the coverage.
Your abstract ought to seem on the prime of your coverage and set expectations to your staff round attendance at work. It will probably additionally be aware a few of the different facets of the coverage, like tardiness, absenteeism, or job abandonment, and that there can be penalties for ongoing examples of these.
Expectations for work attendance.
This must be particular to your enterprise wants. Do you require your workers on-site or in-store at any time when they’re scheduled? Is there a distant or hybrid providing, significantly for roles like managers or part-time staff members like accountants or HR reps?
Set clear expectations on how your workers present up and when. For instance, it’s possible you’ll wish to write {that a} shift begins at a sure time, nevertheless it’s anticipated workers arrive not less than 10 minutes beforehand to organize and clock in on time (verify your state’s laws to make sure you’re paying for that early time if required!). Is there a grace interval for when somebody begins, or is it by the minute? This part of the coverage may also embrace expectations round breaks, like paid lunches.
A phrase of recommendation: generally it’s onerous to not make issues private. Take into consideration how you’d react if considered one of your finest workers was persistently late vs. somebody struggling. As a supervisor, it’s good to make sure you’re treating your staff members the identical, and there isn’t a present of favortism.
Learn how to report absences.
Irrespective of how onerous you encourage your staff to plan forward and request time without work, each defined and unexplained absences and late arrivals can and can occur. Along with late arrivals and no-shows, sometimes workers must take private time without work (PTO) for a variety of causes: holidays, medical points, household issues, appointments, and every thing in-between.
This part of the coverage particulars to your workers find out how to request time without work, if there are any parameters round time without work (together with a set variety of PTO or sick days), and when and find out how to contact supervisors or managers for unplanned time without work.
Unplanned time without work is a truth of life. Emergencies occur. Write your coverage in order that it clearly signifies how a lot time an worker must notify a supervisor earlier than their shift begins. That manner they will rapidly discover another person to work the shift, or discover one other answer.
Clock in and clock out coverage.
Clocking out and in for a shift is vital for attendance—and payroll. Your scheduling and time monitoring software program goes to carry all worker knowledge of who labored when and for the way lengthy. One large profit of getting a strong time clock app is that your personal workers are answerable for their data. Emphasize that within the coverage. If an worker is on-time however retains forgetting to clock in at the beginning of their shift, that will impression how they’re perceived by administration and what they receives a commission.
Tardiness and early departures from work.
The next sections on what constitutes an absence could be damaged up into every of their very own or grouped collectively beneath a extra broad absence. We’ve damaged them out right here to emphasise what to incorporate in every.
Tardiness, or lateness, is crucial to incorporate in your attendance coverage. It could be price having a separate definitions part to element every totally different attendance time period. Tardiness contains lateness to work or late arrival again from a break.
Early departures from work embrace leaving a shift earlier than it’s scheduled to complete with out managerial approval. Together with this in your attendance coverage is vital. Simply because it’s a sluggish shift doesn’t all the time imply it’s okay to duck out early—it’s the realm of a supervisor to find out if an worker leaves early or not.
Unexpected absences.
An unexpected absence could embrace a household or medical emergency, or a final minute appointment, or sickness. There are a selection of the explanation why an worker can have an unexpected or unplanned absence from work. Make the definition of what an unexpected absence is and what to do about it (e.g. speaking with a supervisor as quickly as attainable.)
It could be price mentioning what a sample of unexpected circumstances can yield. There’s a separate disciplinary motion part within the coverage, however think about placing right here {that a} sample of unexpected absences could lead to some type of punishment.
Recommendation: To be able to hold your prime workers (and usher in new ones), just be sure you’re balancing the wants of your workers with the enterprise. For instance, a single father or mother who’s balancing a number of youngster care wants may wrestle to make an early shift time that interferes with college drop off. As a substitute of them all the time exhibiting up late and apprehensive, take into consideration rescheduling their shifts. Or, if in case you have an worker who struggles with dyslexia and also you solely share their shift schedule in a written format, take into consideration discovering different methods to allow them to know to accomodate them.
Job abandonment.
Typically an worker is scheduled for work and doesn’t present. Make it clear in your coverage what job abandonment appears to be like like and what number of recurring days equates to job abandonment.
It’s vital to know that an worker could also be in misery or one thing unhealthy occurred. Take the steps to stipulate the way you’ll attain out to an worker to make sure their security earlier than figuring out they’ve deserted their job.
Disciplinary actions.
This part is among the most vital to your attendance coverage, so we’ve made positive to stipulate it clearly within the attendance coverage template. The aim is to make it clear to workers the implications of the above actions. Consider your doc as a contract between you and your worker, and failure to conform can lead to any of the disciplinary actions.
Make the disciplinary actions clear. For infractions like tardiness, a verbal or written warning could suffice. For a sample of conduct, disciplinary actions can observe an escalation, which can embrace job termination.
Supervisory or employer function and accountability.
Because the proprietor or supervisor, you and your different managers (if in case you have them), must implement your coverage. Clearly define the function of supervisors and managers in comparison with an proprietor in order that it’s clear who’s making judgement calls.
Worker sign-off.
Get workers to log off on the doc and hold it to your data. This helps guarantee that in relation to your attendance coverage, everybody’s on the identical web page and clearly understands the objectives, definitions, and reprucussions.
Learn how to create an inclusive attendance coverage.
Not each worker is identical. Whereas time and attendance is vital to each enterprise, it’s additionally essential to deal with workers with care and security. Use inclusive language, empathy, and alternatives for nuance wherever attainable in your attendance coverage.
You could have workers who’re in a different way abled and want extra time to get to and from work. Write in that point and attendance could also be totally different relying on the worker. That manner an worker who’s, for instance, time blind, can really feel secure figuring out their expertise is considered.
Prepare to alter your enterprise for the higher with a powerful attendance coverage.
Having an attendance coverage in place retains each you and your workers accountable to your enterprise. Consider an attendance coverage as an extra useful resource within the toolbox to maintain your small enterprise operating the way in which you want it to.
Think about using time attendance software program from Homebase to maintain you and your workers on monitor with all issues hours labored associated. Staff can effectively clock in and clock out on the Homebase app, and hold monitor of their hours labored, each for attendance and payroll.
Obtain your free attendance coverage template.
The staff at Homebase is aware of your attendance coverage is vital to each you and your workers. We created a free attendance coverage template to make this course of simpler on you.
Obtain this free, downloadable attendance coverage template that will help you form yours: Attendance coverage template to your small enterprise
