Write a 8 page essay on Managing Employee Performance.‘Withdrawal model’, a psychological model, describes absenteeism as employee’s abstention from dissatisfying working conditions. At the same

Write a 8 page essay on Managing Employee Performance.

‘Withdrawal model’, a psychological model, describes absenteeism as employee’s abstention from dissatisfying working conditions. At the same time, medical science connects absenteeism with alcoholism, smoking, low back pains, and migraines. Although majority employers have designed specific policies to mitigate absenteeism issues, none of them makes clear distinction between absences for avoidable reasons and unavoidable reasons. Many of such policies only consider frequency of absences but not the kind of absence. This paper will critically assess three strategies that organisations normally use to curtail absenteeism. Absenteeism Generally, absenteeism can be classified into two categories such as innocent absenteeism and culpable absenteeism, each of which needs different type of prevention approach. 1. Innocent absenteeism When employees are frequently absent from their duty or obligation for unavoidable reasons such as sickness and injury, it represents innocent absenteeism (Attendance awareness program, 2004). This type absenteeism is scrupulous as it occurs for reasons beyond the control of individuals and cannot be remedied by disciplinary measures. 2. Culpable absenteeism Foreman (n.d.) states that frequent absence of employees from their duty or obligation for avoidable reasons or reasons within their control is called culpable absenteeism. For instance, when an employee takes leave by deceptively claiming that he/she is sick, it constitutes culpable absenteeism. According to Armstrong and Baron (2005, p.138), disciplinary measures can be applied only to persons who are guilty of culpable absenteeism. Identification of excessive absenteeism An organisation keeps accurate attendance records for every employee in order to check whether an employee’s leave days are excessive or not as equal to others (Human resources). If worksite manager suspects that an employee is frequently and excessively absent from his duty, the regular attendance records would assist the manger to verify his suspicion. If attendance records show that the manager’s suspicion is true, then he gathers as much details as possible so as to clearly understand the situation. In addition, the manager documents all available information on the work history of the particular employee. As the next step, organisations usually practice three strategies according to the nature of absenteeism. They are: 1. Individual communication 2. Counseling innocent absenteeism 3. Corrective action for culpable absenteeism 1. Individual communication As Babu and Venkatramaraju (2011) point out, once the supervisor has gathered and documented all available information, he individually meets the employee who has been identified of having questionable absences. In the first meeting session, manager brings concerns regarding excessive absences to the respective employee’s attention. This meeting is also an opportunity for the manger to discuss the reasons for excessive absences and possible measures to address the issue. The manager would carefully listen to the employee’s responses. One of the major purposes of this meeting, as Terzo (2011) notes is to inform the employee that management considers attendance as a vital element of overall work performance.