“Hidden” Absence Reporting including Bradford Score

2 reports probably considered useful by HR professionals in any country are hidden away in the menu for British payroll.

They aim at analysing absenteism and can be used globally – provided approval from data privacy officers and workforce reps are obtained, where this is required. Intended for the UK the reportss miss some texts, if the user is not logged on in English.  

1. Spotting Absence Patterns

The report RPLABSG0_PATTERN (transaction code PC00_M08_PATTERN) checks, whether absenses of selected types (e.g. sickness) are frequently used to extend off periods (e.g. Friday or Monday to extend weekends). It can also spot absences related to:

• the employee’s or his / her family members’ birthdays
• special days (e.g. after company Christmas party or the FA cup finale)
• regularities such as ‘same day every month’ can be chosen on the selection screen

You can choose the relevant absence types on the selection screen. The report produces the following list with the right hand column showing how often sickness (or the absence types you selected) have occurred extending a weekend:

2. Bradford Score (Absence Spells Analysis)

The Bradford Score is a widely used method to indicate possible abuse of sick notes. Number of sick days as well as spells are used to calculate the score with the number of spells going into the formula squared thus being emphasised more strongly.The formula is simple:

(Bradford score) = (no spells) * (no spells) * (no days)

This means: an employee absent for 5 single days has a score of 125, whilst one five days absence only leads to a score of 5. A high score indicates that abuse of sick notes might be an issue, but it will always require the thorough consideration of the particular circumstances before any action is taken.

The SAP Standard report for calculating the Bradford Score is RPLABSG0_SPELLS (Transaction Code PC00_M08_SPELLS). As in the first report the absence types to be considered are chosen on the selection screen. Apart from the Bradford Score value (last column in picture) various other absence statistics as you know them from other reports are included:

Good to know:

• 2 absence records immediately following each other without a single day in between are counted as one spell. However, the infotypoe 2001 fields to link absences to each other as used in some countries (e.g. Austria, Germany or Spain) are not considered.

• Only full years can be reported on for the Bradford score.

• The report counts calendar days rather than working days.

Should these constrains not work for you, you can still enhance the standard reports or copy and amend them. I’ve used implicit enhancements to achieve this.