Absence Management: Harnessing Employee Absence Data to Save Time and Money

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened awareness around managing employee leaves of absence and associated regulations. In fact, according to a recent Guardian study, 8 in 10 employers say the pandemic taught them the importance of absence management.

As workers return to the office, HR teams are turning their attention to their absence management policies once again. Complying with related state and federal leave programs is one of the greatest absence management-related challenges your customers’ HR teams will face.

However, today’s HR teams are stretched thin. Managing absences, whether scheduled or unscheduled, can be time-consuming and cumbersome, especially when done manually on spreadsheets. Furthermore, state laws around regulated leaves can change on a dime, and federal regulations are highly complex.

Enter absence management software.

How absence management software works

Automated absence management software can keep insurers’ customers in compliance and up to date, without further burdening their HR teams. Automation reduces time and money spent tracking employee absences, making it faster and easier to identify absentee trends.

Disparate systems provide only a fragmented picture of your customers’ workforces. Automating absence management helps them meet state compliance and track employee absences by connecting to a greater digital ecosystem of HR management systems. It also integrates with internal federal and state regulation rules or third-party vendors that monitor and update regulations as they occur. Absence management software brings these multiple disparate systems together to report and analyze available data for their HR teams.

What to look for in an absence management system

Ease of use is a chief benefit of an absence management program, but not all absence management systems are created equal. To reap the greatest benefits from an absence management system, your customers should look for the following features:

• Automated processes. Automation lets your customers’ employees schedule their own absences or log sick days. Claims that don’t meet eligibility requirements can be auto rejected without the involvement of your customers’ HR teams.
• Next stage claims management. An absence management system should provide additional information and avenues to next stage claims management. For example, your customers should be able to create a rule that a certain type of absence indicates whether physical therapy is likely in store for that employee, or if an absence related to an accident can help trigger a related claim.
• Absence tracking and reporting. When all employee data is in one place, absence patterns are easy to identify. Maybe your customer has an employee who is absent every second Friday, or an entire team is requesting vacation time the same week. Absence management software can help them uncover patterns with tracking and reporting.
• Compliance aid. Absence management systems should have the capability to integrate with third-party vendors that manage these changing regulations in order to remain fully compliant with all federal and state regulations related to absence including FMLA, disability, and ADA, and have the ability to integrate with internal compliance systems. This feature, which is driven by the need for API-based technology, is a game-changer for organizations that run across multiple states.
• Seamless integration. When absence management software links to HR management systems and health management software, it’s easy to monitor all the functions together in a single ecosystem, which is the ultimate goal.
• Efficient workflow. Absence management software should allow managers to access all leave requests in a central place, ensuring appropriate coverage and deadline management.

When it comes to insurance, giving your customers the ability to add data and analytics and communicate across digital platforms is especially important.

EIS’ absence management software solution does just that – collecting, managing, analyzing, and reporting on important absence management data and giving your customers’ HR teams the information they need to maintain compliance, increase efficiency, and reduce costs simultaneously.

For more on how EIS’ absence management platform can help your customers succeed, contact us.

Author: Samantha Chow, EIS L&A Market Lead