Unmanaged employee absence is expensive. It disrupts productivity, puts pressure on the rest of the team, and if left unchecked, can quietly become one of the biggest hidden costs in a business. Managing it well means more than just recording who’s off, it means understanding patterns, having the right conversations early, and giving your team the tools to handle it consistently.
Centric HR combines HR expertise with Breathe’s absence management software to give you both the human judgement and the data you need to get on top of absence.
Why Absence Management Matters
Sickness absence costs UK businesses billions of pounds every year in lost productivity, cover costs and management time. Left unmanaged, short-term absence can also mask longer-term issues, whether that’s a health condition that needs support, a management problem, or simple disengagement.
A structured approach to absence management helps you spot these patterns early and respond in a way that’s fair to the employee and sensible for the business.
How Our Absence Management Service Works
Accurate data, at your fingertips
Breathe’s software records and stores all information regarding employee absence and holiday entitlement. Your team can access this data from any device, so there’s never any misunderstanding about how much time they’ve taken off.
Supporting information, like Bradford Factor scores for each employee, helps you root out absenteeism before it becomes a bigger problem.
Reclaim your time
Keeping a grip on employee leave is vital, but it can be a real drain on your resources. Instead of closing deals or improving business processes, you end up trying to work out how many holiday days someone has left.
Breathe’s absence management software gives you back the hours you’d otherwise spend on manual HR admin.
Empower your team
Breathe’s easy-to-operate employee portal gives your team transparency over their own leave. They can review policies and procedures, book off time, and log sickness, including uploading supporting documents, all from one place.
This creates a level playing field for both employees and the business, removing the chance of miscommunication.
What is the Bradford Factor
The Bradford Factor is a formula used to measure the impact of employee absence. It weights frequent short absences more heavily than one longer period off, on the basis that frequent short absences tend to cause more disruption to a team than a single extended absence. Breathe’s software calculates this automatically, so you can see at a glance where a pattern needs attention rather than working it out manually.
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Get Started
Absence management works best alongside wider HR support. If absence is connected to a health and safety issue, our Health and Safety service can help. If a case becomes more complex, such as a long-term or disputed absence, our Employee Relations team can step in. For the full picture of what Breathe HR offers beyond absence, see our Breathe HR Software page.
Contact us to talk through your current absence process, or start with a Free HR Health Check to see where absence is costing your business the most.
Common FAQs
It’s the process of tracking, understanding and reducing employee absence, covering everything from short-term sickness to long-term leave and holiday requests.
It lets employees log sickness and holiday requests online, gives managers real-time visibility of team absence, and flags patterns that might need a closer look.
It’s a formula used to measure the impact of employee absence, weighting frequent short absences more heavily than one longer period off, since frequent short absences tend to cause more disruption.
Yes, businesses that actively manage absence typically see lower sickness rates, since early conversations and clear policies help address issues before they become long-term problems.
Yes, we offer a free 14 day trial with no obligation to buy.
