When we founded TeamSense, we believed we could use technology to bring hourly workers and their organizations closer together through shared communications, streamlined automations, and consistent data. This month we took another major step forward on that journey, enabling employees to see the details of their absence history over the past 12 months. Now, everyone who needs to know – the team member, supervisor and HR – have visibility into the same information at the same time. This kind of transparency reduces employee disputes and confusion, and also lays the foundation for reducing absenteeism and improving productivity.
Curious how that works? Register Now for our Product Launch Webinar next Tuesday, December 12 at 11:30am ET, where I'll share the latest from TeamSense and the impact we're seeing in some of our customers. Can't wait until then? Read on…
Attendance Histories for Employees: Commitment to Transparency
If you read my September product launch post – September 2023 TeamSense Release: Attendance Histories, Team Leaders & Points Balances – you might be thinking, “Wait, didn’t Alison already tell us about attendance histories?” Yes and no. In September, we released a high-level summary of an employee's attendance, highlighting their points balance as well as their number of absences in the past 12 months.
Since our September release, we’ve been building on that foundation with details behind each absence. In October, we released a new view to Admins and Team Leaders that detailed their absences for the past 12 months, including precise survey responses. With this release, we are providing those details directly to employees as well, so they can see the exact timestamp and responses for each absence they've submitted. These details are shown in the pre-call-off screen, so employees can readily access their history before they choose to call off.
Now everyone – HR Admins, Team Leaders, and Employees – knows where an individual stands when it comes to attendance. By showing employees their attendance history, TeamSense reinforces a culture of transparency and accountability that reduces absenteeism and the risk of disputes.
Also with this release, we added a “+ New Occurrence” button for Admins and Team Leaders that enables them to add an absence on behalf of an employee directly from their attendance history page. A manager can use this functionality to capture no-call, no-shows or add a late arrival that wasn't submitted in TeamSense, ensuring these situations are captured and stored with the rest of the employee's attendance history.
Attendance History Transparency Vs. Opaque Call-Off Methods
We want to thank all the customers who provided feedback and suggestions, and shared your challenges with us, as we designed these latest features. Many of you came to us because you could no longer tolerate the causes and cost of absenteeism without taking action. Countless HR teams have dreamed of this day when team members don’t need to call on HR or their supervisor to find out their points balance or attendance history - and it's a privilege working with you to make that a reality.
But if you are not already a TeamSense user, let me paint a bigger picture about why we are so excited about transparency in attendance, and how we believe it drives accountability for the teams that use our product.
Before using TeamSense, factories or warehouses typically use one of four options to manage employee call-offs:
Employees call their manager directly
Employees leave a message on a shared call-off voicemail
Employees call an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system
Employees call a hotline with a live operator
Although employee call-in/call-off procedures can vary, none of these solutions offer an employee real-time visibility into their attendance history. If your company uses one of these options, imagine how behavior could change if employees knew their attendance standing at any time. We've seen customers achieve a 39% drop in absenteeism by using TeamSense to drive accountability in attendance.
That's why we're excited about the transparency we have enabled over the last several months. Transparency is the foundation of accountability, ultimately the start of a journey to reduce absenteeism and improve team productivity and engagement.
Hey No Call, No Shows–We’re Coming to Get You!
So where are we going next with our vision of transparency and accountability? We are working on providing employees even more visibility into their points standing, including sending warnings to employees at certain thresholds based on their organization's attendance policy. Ultimately, we believe that all of these features will not only radically reduce absenteeism, but also take down our arch-nemesis: the no-call, no-show.
We all know that no-call, no-shows wreak havoc on productivity and operational efficiency. HR is spending time trying to track down the absent employee, wondering if they are okay - or simply quiet quitting. Managers are forced to scramble, shuffling their team and plans to meet their customers' expectations. Employees have to work overtime to cover for their peers, hurting employee engagement while also increasing costs (never a great combo).
Of course, sometimes life just gets in the way. An employee is so sick, they're embarrassed to call their manager directly. Or someone rushes to help with a family emergency and doesn't have time to wait for an operator. For those folks - the ones who would call off but can't because it's too hard - TeamSense was built for them.
But we know we can do even more. For sure, TeamSense reduces no-call, no-shows simply by being easy to use. We've already seen that impact in our customers. Beyond that, we are changing how employees perceive their own attendance standing. For the first time, TeamSense has offered employees a view into their attendance standing that they can access on their own, at any time. They don't need to find HR or track down their supervisor or download an app or wait at a kiosk. After all, it's their attendance standing. And when their attendance standing belongs to the employee, it takes on a different meaning. The employee can be held accountable to a standard that they can clearly see and understand. This is where we are pushing next with the product.
If you're hearing about TeamSense for the first time, we’d love to show you a new way of managing attendance, with transparency and accountability. Book a demo and we’ll walk you through it. If you're an existing customer, get excited. We're on a journey together to transform attendance management, and we're just getting started.
