Having an employee call off line often starts as a way to definitively document employee absences and tardies. This greatly reduces employee-employer disputes about attendance and whether or not employees properly followed established call-off procedures. Sometimes having an absentee reporting line is mandated by union contract or necessitated after a wrongful termination lawsuit. Other times it simply shines as a wise business decision that offers many tangible benefits.
Seldom, however, are the front line supervisors and managers the impetus for establishing an absentee line. Yet often they benefit greatly from it. Here’s why:
Reduced Interruptions: A production line manager is a busy person, often pulled in multiple directions at the same time. He or she must keep the line moving, the workers productive, and the management happy. Stopping all of that to take a call from an employee who will be late or absent accomplishes none of these primary goals and serves as a distraction from addressing them. It’s like juggling, and one minor disturbance makes all of the balls fall. Instead, let the answering service take absentee calls so the manager can keep juggling.
Documented Results: An absentee reporting line thoroughly documents every call, verifying each piece of needed information about every late or absent employee. It’s a complete record, accurate and sure, of each attendance deviation. Without the capable work of the answering service to do this, harried supervisors and managers are left on their own to scratch down the key information on any writing surface they can find or trust their memories until they are back at their desk, which may not happen until shift end.
A Single Point of Reference: The call offs can be reported any number of ways, via text, email, voicemail, or even fax. Regardless of the selected means of communication, all absences end up in one place. This eliminates checking multiple sources to find out who called in and when. Also summary reports, via shift manager and supervisor, are available to provide an overview at a glance.
Impartial Treatment: Everyone wants to receive fair, impartial treatment. No one wants to have someone else held to a different standard. Yet when distributing absence and tardy calls to various departments, buildings, lines, or managers, variances in treatment are bound to occur. While these may not be conscious, they will happen. This is often because of distractions, having a divided focus, or simply being too busy when the call comes in. An employee call in line from an answering service solves this by providing a consistent caller experience for everyone, every time.
Increased Line Efficiency: An employee call off line allows supervisors and managers the opportunity for greater efficacy. When they don’t need to handle interruptions from their workers calling off, worry about fairly handling the calls and properly documenting the information, and can have a single reference, the result is a greater focus on their core goal. And isn’t that what’s ultimately the most important?
Hire an answering service to handle your employee call off line and free up your front line supervisors and managers to best do their job. This makes everyone happy.
