Introduction
This workflow keeps an eye on sickness absence and lets the right people know when an employee reaches a trigger point in your sickness policy. Whenever a sickness is recorded, it checks the employee's sickness history over a rolling period and, if they've just reached a trigger, sends an email to your chosen recipients — and can create a Sense task for them too.
You can base your triggers on the absence scheme already set up in Sense (including the Bradford factor), or set your own thresholds for total sickness days, separate sickness occasions, or both. If you use both, the workflow flags whichever trigger is reached first.
Notifications are sent every time a sickness is recorded while an employee is at or over a threshold — not just the first time it's reached. This means each new sickness for someone over a trigger point is brought to your attention, so nothing slips by unnoticed.
Configurations
You will be prompted to review the default configuration values before deploying the workflow.
You can configure:
The trigger type used to measure absence thresholds (System Default, Days, Instances, or Days & Instances)
The rolling period used to assess sickness absence
The sickness day threshold
The sickness instance threshold
Who receives notifications when a threshold is reached
Whether a Sense task is created alongside the email notification
Click here to learn more about configurable workflows.
How it works
1: Requirements
Ensure certain sickness types are included in the Absence Scheme by defining this in the Event Manager.
If you want to use one single Absence Scheme from within the Sense HR Settings, set this up first.
2: Record sickness
When a sickness absence is logged for an employee included in the scheme, their total points are recalculated automatically - but this is based on the system settings only.
3: Threshold reached
If the new absence causes the employee’s points to cross a threshold, based on the system settings or the configurations, the system flags this event.
4: Automatic notifications
An email and a task are sent to the admin and the employee’s manager detailing:
The updated points total
The required action (e.g., review, meeting, disciplinary step)
How to get this Workflow
If you're interested in this workflow, please reach out to support.
FAQs
What happens when points change due to time passing by and sicknesses falling outside the 12-month period?
Points will drop over time as older absences expire. However, we don’t send notifications when points change only because time has passed. Notifications are only triggered when a new sickness is added that moves the employee to a different threshold compared to before.
Why am I receiving a notification when their threshold was lower than before?
Even if the threshold is lower than the one you were notified about previously - for example, if an older absence drops off and points decrease due to time passed, then a new sickness is added - the employee may move into a different threshold (even if it’s lower). In this case, you’ll still receive a notification because the required action has changed.