Employee Leave Use Continues to Rise

Employers have seen an increase in employee leave requests for the third consecutive year, according to a recent Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) article.

Contributing Factors

Data from AbsenceSoft, a leave and accommodation management solutions provider, shows 57 percent of employers reported an increase in employees requesting leave in 2024, making it the third consecutive year with an increase. In 2023, the increase was 62 percent, and in 2022, the increase was 96 percent.

Reasons for the leave requests include recovering from injury and illness, managing mental health challenges, caring for an aging parent, and taking parental leave. Related data from ComPsych shows mental health related leave in the workplace has increased 300 percent from 2017 to 2023.

Additional factors contributing to a rise in leave requests include:

• More employers are providing paid leave for employees.
• Employers have improved leave benefit communications.
• Employers have expanded the reasons leave may be taken to include caring for an immediate family member.
• An increased number of employers are offering paid parental leave.

Educational Organizations

An increase in absences, especially among teachers, can be concerning as research shows that teachers are the most important factor in determining student achievement. In addition, when the total costs of absences are calculated, the impact is significant for public schools.

Despite the impact of employee absences, efforts to track and measure absence costs are seldom undertaken by districts and colleges. Comparative data on educational employee absence requests is limited, resulting in each entity being responsible for analyzing absence reasons and rates at the local level. Understanding the issues at the local level is key to tackling employee absences.

Absence Control for Districts and Absence Control for Colleges, available in the HR Services Resource Library (member login required), provide guidance for determining the costs of absences, identifying factors that influence absence rates, and management control strategies. Numerous other resources for managing leaves and absences are available in the HR Services Resource Library and in The Administrator’s Guide to Managing Leaves and Absences, available in the online TASB Store.