Using the Bradford Factor to improve attendance

The Bradford Factor is a method used to help identify attendance related issues. Each employee is given a score based on the following formula.

S*S*D=BF (Where S is the number of occurrences and D is the total number of days out.)

For example, an employee who calls out sick on 10 separate occasions for a total of 10 days absent would receive a BF score of 10*10*10=1000. If another employee was absent 10 days but only had 2 occurrences, their BF score would be 2*2*10=40. You may be asking yourself why is there such a difference between the two scores, both employees were out ten days. The reason for this is that it’s usually more disruptive to a work force to have to plan for many small absences rather than adjust your work force to compensate for a few long term absences. So the higher the BF score the more likely there is an attendance related issue.

As a manager you can use this formula to help identify potential attendance issues by setting up triggers. A trigger is just an alerting mechanism that signals to the hiring manager that there is an attendance related issue with one of the employees that needs to be followed up on. Below is an example of a potential trigger system.

Bradford Factor:
0-49 = No Action Required
50-124 = Possible Verbal Warning
125-399 = Possible Written Warning
400--649 = Final Written Warning
650+ = Termination of Employment

With eTimeOff.com's reporting system you can set up a trigger which allows you to identify attendance issues quickly and work with employees to correct the behavior.


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