Attendance can be a difficult issue to approach as you consider work-life balance, illnesses and commitment to the job. While you may be tempted to put strict attendance policies up against your employees, you also want to ensure you're welcoming workers to take time off when needed.

Let's explore the best ways to improve attendance rates at your workplace, without scaring off valuable talent.

Why do persistent attendance issues arise?

Attendance can occur for any number of reasons. Life happens outside of work and that can sometimes greatly impact how present or available an employee is to their job. However, sometimes an employee or an entire team may feel like they're lacking commitment to the job.

Knowing how to address attendance will depend on how well you know your employees. If you've put in effort to make your workers feel valued and appreciated for their hard work, then you probably have nothing to worry about. But, if you've noticed your employees are less engaged, or enthusiastic about their job than when you started, you may have a larger issue at hand.

Check in with your management teams to gauge worker attitude. If the general consensus is that employees are less excited about their work than before, then it's time to take action. To follow are a few suggestions for improving engagement and subsequent attendance.

Improve engagement to enhance attendance

Employee engagement is key to a team of people dedicated to their work and the future of the business. Engaged teams offer new ideas, challenging processes to make way for better workflows. When workers are disengaged, you don't see the excitement or tenacity you need in a workplace.

You should first encourage your management teams to start conversations with their teams. Offer organized, open discussions about how the workplace could improve to meet the needs of their workers. This could be intimate 1:1's, anonymous surveys or group conversations with set question-and-answer sessions.

Of the responses your employees provide, shift your budget and find ways to meet these expectations. If it's a better benefits plan, PTO or flexible work hours, see how you can negotiate workers' pay to support these work-life balance needs. Maybe it's simply a matter of informing employees about changes in the company before they happen, or they're looking for more opportunities for career advancement. Workers want to feel like more than cogs in the overall machine, and rather that they are humans looking to put food on the table and advance in their career life.

Instead of believing you've just hired "lazy" employees, poor attendance can tell you a lot about job satisfaction. If you've put effort into hiring incredible talent, you want to ensure your workers are gaining as much as they're giving in the workplace.