Everyone falls sick from time to time, and your employees are no exception. Whether it’s just a case of the common cold or a work-related injury, a significant proportion of your workforce is bound to take sick days throughout the year to get treatment or recuperate after an injury.

The time it takes for an employee to get back to work depends on the problem and could range anywhere between a few days and a couple of months. The longer the employee is sick and out of work, the more impactful their absence will be to the day-to-day operations of the business.

Impact of sickness absence to your business

Unlike annual leave and maternity leave which are predictable, allowing you time to make the necessary preparations, employee absences due to sickness are abrupt and impossible to plan for. They can put your business in a difficult situation due to the unexpected labour gaps they create. These gaps can result in a couple of problems:

  1. Reduced productivity. Although it’s hard to quantify how much the absence of a single employee will impact productivity, it is obvious that their responsibilities will have to be shared among the remaining staff to keep the cogs turning. This will almost certainly cause slippages in the existing workloads of those who are assigned the absent employee’s duties. So things might be moving along, but they will do so at a significantly slower pace due to the over-extension of the remaining workers.
  2. Missed deadlines. As a result of the reduced productivity, meeting deadlines (that were set with a particular number of employees in mind) becomes difficult which could impact negatively on the overall customer experience. If customers are not satisfied, the effects of an absent employee could be felt long into the future.
  3. Increased stress. Sharing out the absent employee’s responsibilities means an increased workload for the remaining workers. This will cause stress, fatigue and in the worst case, employee burnout. The resulting effect is a further dip in productivity and an increase in the number of employees taking sick leaves pushing your business further onto the ropes. A dangerous loop could be created.
  4. More overtime. Sometimes due to the increased workloads, employees might be needed to work overtime to meet production schedules. Overtime is not only expensive to the company but also taxing to the employee. Because of fatigue, workers will also make more errors which will impact negatively on the quality of the products.
    Because of all the negative impacts employee absence could cause, it’s important to have a strategy in place to deal with this kind of eventuality.

Covering illness-caused labour gaps

To cover illness-caused worker absences, you require a solution that is fast and effective at providing workers with the exact kind of skills you require when you fall short Temporary employees or casuals provide a good solution for filling labour gaps created by sickness absences. But the recruitment process which involves looking for, vetting and training a temporary employee makes this solution both expensive and slow. This is where temporary labour hire can help.

With labour hire, you can get a qualified temporary worker with the kind of skills and experience you require to provide quick cover for your absent employee on short notice. It’s the quick and effective labour solution you need to cover these sporadic employee absences.

Here’s why labour hire is a great solution for filling sickness absences:

  1. It’s fast. Labour hire firms have vetted qualified employees in their database that they can call upon at any moment. This means that a temporary employee can be provided to your business at a moment’s notice without compromise on the workers skill and experience.
  2. Cost effectiveness. There are a lot of costs associated with recruiting for a new position; you have to advertise it, go through a mountain of CVs, interview the candidates and do background checks. All this costs a lot and takes a lot of time. Labour hire firms do all the work for you and provide a candidate that will best suit your business’ needs.
  3. There’s Variety. Labour hire firms have large pools of qualified workers who are ready and willing to start work at a moment’s notice. And because of the various industries they recruit for, their skill pool is large which means that they can fill any position in your company hassle free. The large number of workers on standby also means that you can get several positions filled at the same time. Think of it as your one-stop shop for all your labour needs.
  4. Robust recruitment processes. The core business of labour hire companies is to source, vet and match workers with the needs of their clients. Because of this specialisation, labour hire firms can do this efficiently and effectively as they have built robust processes over time. This means that the chances of the worker provided to you succeeding in their temporary role are very high.
  5. No time commitments. You cannot predict the time it will take for an employee to recover from an illness or an injury. To overcome this problem, temporary labour hire gives you the flexibility to keep the temporary worker for as long as you need to without any contractual obligation. An on-hired employee can work at your company for as briefly as a couple of days or as long as several months. And when it’s time for them to leave, you don’t have to follow any lengthy procedures – just notify the labour hire provider.
  6. Optional permanent placement. If the sick employee cannot come back to work for whatever reason, you can easily transition the on-hired temporary employee to a permanent employee. They are already accustomed to the role so the transition from temporary to permanent employee is fast and smooth.

Don’t let employee absence due to illness interrupt operations in your business, use labour hire to fill positions with competent workers on short notice.