Absence is the period of time that employees are away from work. There are a number of reasons why employees may be absent from work, including sickness and injury. Absence rate is the measurement of the number of days employees are absent during a period, for example a month or a year.

You can use this data to determine where absenteeism problems may occur. Identifying common trends will help you address them early before they get worse. The absence rate can be calculated for each employee and department separately so you know which departments have higher absences than others. You can also calculate it across your entire company in order to get an overview of all your employees' absenteeism rates at once.  If many people from one department or area seem to have the same issue with missing work, then it’s likely that something about their workplace needs improving.