It is well known that unplanned employee absences cost employers money through lost productivity, among many other factors. What is less well known, and the subject of a recent Business Wire article, is exactly how much it costs. According to a survey done by Mercer (on behalf of Kronos Inc.), 8.7% of payroll is lost to these absences. To put this figure into perspective, that’s well over half the cost of the average payroll related health care expenditure. More specifically the net daily loss of productivity is 19% for unplanned absences (versus 13% for planned absences).

This analysis points to two important conclusions.  First, is the importance of “human capital analytics”—using data to shed light on a real business problem.  Second, is the importance of effectively addressing this cost/productivity problem through improved human capital management.