Fact sheet: Beat absenteeism with the Bradford Factor and LeaveMaster
The average UK employee takes almost
seven days off sick a year 1 . But every time
one of your staff members calls in sick, it
substantially impacts your bottom line. Not
only are you paying an employee to stay at
home, their absence leads to reduced levels
of productivity, efficiency and customer
service. Deadlines may be missed, the
morale of employees asked to take on extra
work drops and you can incur additional
costs, such as paying existing staff overtime
or bringing in temporary staff.
This adds up to an estimated cost to UK
employers of over £1000 per employee
every year. 2 So improving your absence
rates by even a small percentage, could
result in substantial cost-savings for your
company.
How could the Bradford Factor help?
More than one in ten sick days are believed
to be taken by employees who aren’t
actually ill, but have called in sick to extend
weekends and holidays or to enjoy sporting
events 3 .
These one-off “sickies” are more costly to
businesses than long-term absences
because cover usually can’t be arranged in
time and key tasks are either neglected or
the absentee’s colleagues have to do extra
work, damaging productivity and morale.
By giving a rating to each employee based
on the number and length of their absences
over a year, the Bradford Factor roots out
and deters those employees who are
disrupting your business by taking too many
“sickies.”
How does the Bradford Factor work?
The Bradford Factor formula is: E x E x D,
with E the number of episodes of absence
and D the total number of days absent over
a rolling 52 week period. By penalizing
employees with many short leaves more
than those with a small number of long-term
absences, the Bradford Factor helps
1
2
2008 CBI/AXA Absence Survey
Hewitt 2008 Healthcare Fundamentals Survey
3
2008 CBI/AXA Absence Survey
managers and HR departments identify staff
who have been regularly feigning illness.
For example, if an employee is off for 12
straight days on genuine long-term sick
leave, but this is their only episode of
absence in a year, their Bradford Factor will
only be 12 (1 x 1 x 12 = 12). But if another
employee, who regularly claims to be ill on
Mondays and Fridays, has also taken 12
sick days over the year, but has called in
sick on 8 different occasions, their Bradford
Factor will be 768 (8 x 8 x 12 = 768),
highlighting the need for remedial action.
Implementing the Bradford Factor has been
proven to dramatically reduce absenteeism
in organisations. As well as providing
managers with clear evidence of
absenteeism, it also acts as a highly-
effective deterrent. Knowing that it will give
them a high Bradford Factor score, staff are
discouraged from taking unwarranted sickies,
especially if the organisation has a “trigger”
system in place whereby mandatory action
is taken against employees whose score
reaches a certain level.
Why use LeaveMaster to calculate the
Bradford Factor?
Although the Bradford Factor is a powerful
tool for tackling absenteeism, calculating it
for every employee across an organisation
is incredibly time-consuming and labour-
intensive. And if the wrong number of
episodes of absences is mistakenly put into
the equation, an employee’s Bradford Factor
score can be inadvertently doubled or tripled,
resulting in unwarranted disciplinary action
and a loss in confidence in the system.
LeaveMaster resolves this problem by
automatically calculating the ongoing
Bradford Factor score for every employee in
your organisation for you; even intuitively
taking into account non-working days such
as weekends and bank holidays. This
means you can use the Bradford Factor to
tackle absenteeism and make substantial
cost-savings, but without the burdensome
administration time or potential for error that
comes with using a manual or spreadsheet-
based calculation.

How does LeaveMaster help?

Whenever an employee calls in sick, a

manager or team member simply logs the
sick day on LeaveMaster. The sick day is
then added to the employee’s online records
and their Bradford Factor score is
automatically updated.

By being able to see at a glance how many

sick days each employee has had and their
latest Bradford Factor score, managers and
HR departments can monitor employee
absence in real-time and proactively warn
staff who are about to exceed their Bradford
Factor limit. They can also take action
against staff whose Bradford Factor score is
above the agreed level, and should the
issue go to a disciplinary hearing, they have
an up-to-date, indisputable record of the
employee’s absenteeism to refer to.

And since employees use LeaveMaster

themselves to quickly and easily book their
holidays, they can see their absences are
being accurately monitored via the
application and can keep track of their
Bradford Factor score, deterring them from
taking the “sickies” that are so damaging to
your business.

To find out more about how you can beat

absenteeism by using the Bradford Factor
on LeaveMaster, call us on 0800 33 456 30
and we’ll give you a comprehensive
demonstration. Or go to:
www.leavemaster.com