Sickness and absence

Keep teams on track with smart absence management software

Easily manage employee absences, including sick leave, directly from your browser or the SenseHR mobile app

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Flexible & Transparent Absence Management

Take full control of your absence processes with custom rules, built-in return-to-work tracking, and real-time visibility across teams, departments, or individuals—all within SenseHR.

Spot trends

Heatmaps show you which days are most prone to sickness, and can reveal trends from individuals or teams.

Set triggers

Implement absence scoring systems such as the Bradford Factor, to trigger warnings when individuals hit a certain threshold.

Practical and relevant

Manage access

Decide who can see or approve a person’s sickness or absence requests, to keep things private, confidential and controlled.

Strict on Data Security

Build workflows

Create automated workflows based on absence patterns or triggers, feeding into your other HR processes.

Non-Instrusive and Easy to Use

Reduce absence

Tackle problem short-term absence with better visibility and monitoring—see what’s happening and act early.

Team absence overview

Give team managers an easy way to check their team calendar to see who is working, who is absent, and who is away on planned leave.

Browser or mobile

Manage time off with a single click in your browser, or with our modern mobile app.

Learn more about the mobile app

Frequently asked questions

What is absence management software?

Absence management software – also known as staff absence software or leave management software – is designed to streamline employee absence tracking. It enables organisations to manage sick days and leave, automate approvals, monitor trends, and enforce absence policies. With tools like a sick leave tracker, HR absence calendar, and detailed reporting, it's considered the best software to track employee absences and improves overall sickness and absence management.

Can I set up custom leave types in Sense.hr?

Yes, Sense HR allows full customisation of leave types. Whether it's standard holiday or a unique event like a personal day or special company leave, you can create unlimited categories. These can be configured as paid or unpaid and assigned unique approval workflows, making it a flexible absence tracker for HR and an advanced leave management software solution.

How does Sense HR handle medical documentation?

Sense HR includes built-in sickness and absence management workflows that prompt employees to submit medical documentation, such as fit notes, after a sick leave ends. You can automate reminders, request uploads, and even require completion of a return-to-work form – ensuring your sick leave tracker and records stay compliant and up to date.

What is sick leave management software?

Sick leave management software refers to systems designed to monitor and control employee sick days. It typically includes a sick leave tracker, medical document handling, scoring models like the Bradford Factor, and trend reporting. As part of a wider staff absence software or HR software with sickness tracking suite, it helps companies reduce absenteeism and manage sick days and leave more effectively.

Does Sense HR support multi-location absence rules?

Yes, Sense HR allows you to create tailored absence policies by location, department, or team. This is ideal for organisations with different entitlements or public holidays across offices. It strengthens your employee absence tracking by aligning sickness and absence management rules to your actual workforce structure.

Can I export absence reports?

Yes. Sense HR offers powerful reporting features that allow you to export detailed absence data, including total days lost, absence instances, reasons, and more. This helps HR teams visualise trends, support audits, and improve policy decisions using insights from the HR absence calendar and absence tracker for HR.

How to manage sick leave in HR systems?

To manage sick leave effectively, your HR system should:

  • Log sick leave accurately using a sick leave tracker
  • Automate approvals and notifications (automate employee absence requests)
  • Store medical documentation securely
  • Track return-to-work completion
  • Use scoring metrics like Bradford Factor

Sense HR handles all of this, providing one of the best software to track employee absences on the market.

What is the difference between attendance management and absence management?

Attendance management focuses on presence – tracking when employees are working, clock-ins, and schedules. Absence management focuses on tracking non-attendance, such as holidays, sickness, and leave. Tools like holiday tracking software and staff absence software are geared toward absence management, whereas time-tracking tools are typically used for attendance management.

What is an absence management procedure?

An absence management procedure is a structured approach to handling employee time off. It outlines how employees report absences, how approvals work, when documentation is needed, and how HR follows up. With tools like a HR absence calendar and sickness tracking software, this procedure can be fully automated and standardised across an organisation.

Is absence management the same as leave management?

They're closely related but not exactly the same. Leave management generally covers planned time off, whereas absence management focuses more specifically on unplanned leave, especially sickness or unauthorised absence. Sense HR functions as both a leave management software and a tool for sickness and absence management.

What is a leave management system?

A leave management system is software that handles all types of employee time off – holiday or vacation, sick leave, parental leave, and more. It includes features such as entitlements, balances, requests, approvals, and reports. Tools like Sense HR act as HR software with sickness tracking, combining holiday tracking software with robust employee absence tracking.

What are the metrics for absence management?

Important absence management metrics include:

  • otal days absent per employee
  • Number of absence instances
  • Bradford Factor scores
  • Frequency of Monday/Friday absences
  • Paid vs unpaid absence ratio
  • Team or location-specific absence rates

These can be visualised through dashboards in any effective absence tracker for HR.

How to analyse absence data?

To analyse absence data, use reporting tools within your staff absence software or HR absence calendar. Look for trends such as:

With Sense HR, you can rest assured that you'll get:

  • Frequent absences on certain days
  • High absence rates in specific teams
  • Repeating short-term sick leave

We are also ISO27001 accredited, and it's worth noting that our AI features operate in secure, closed environments, meaning your data is never used outside of your own instance of Sense Workplace, and never shared for AI training purposes. The entire system is designed to meet stringent privacy standards.

How to calculate absence?

Absence can be calculated using:

  • Total time off (days or hours)
  • Number of absence episodes
  • Bradford Factor: B=S2×DB = S^2 \times DB=S2×D, where S is the number of instances and D is the total days absent

Generally, absence rates can be calculated by dividing time off absent by the number of days an employee was scheduled to work. Bradford Factor is one of many ways of looking at absence trends, to spot patterns. Modern leave management software like Sense HR calculates these automatically using its built-in sick leave tracker and employee absence tracking tools.

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