Glossary
What is the absenteeism rate?
The absenteeism rate is the share of available working time lost to unplanned absence, worked out as the number of absence days divided by the total available workdays across a headcount for a period, read as a percentage.
What counts as an absence is a policy choice: most measures exclude planned leave and count unplanned days, but where you draw the line changes the number, so the definition has to travel with the figure.
The rate shows scale; it does not show pattern. A score like the Bradford Factor is the usual companion, because it weights frequent short absences differently from one long one. A calculator gives the rate from the days you enter.
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