Employee Absenteeism

Recently, there were a couple of posts at an online HR network(Go Hire, Get Hired) prompting discussions on No-shows at the time of interviews and No-shows on the date of joining. Understandably, it is frustrating and irritating when people first show interest in your job offer but later don’t show up for interview or don’t join if recruited. The situation is made worse when these ‘professionals’ do not show enough professionalism to pen down a letter or email stating their inability to join.

That apart, what do you do when No-shows become commonplace after an employee joins? Employee absenteeism is increasingly becoming a big issue, affecting both productivity and quality of output. One of my friends forwarded this article to  me - http://www.employer-employee.com/absent.html that lays forth the possible reasons for employee absenteeism. But when we cross-checked with a couple of our team members and some of other HR managers, we found that more often than not, the reasons lay somewhere else. Do you think employee absenteeism is a problem in your organization? What do you think is causing it? How are you trying to deal with it?