Work and Absences
“Balancing remote work and supervising children is no easy task. And leaving kids home alone can be tricky, especially in the early high school years. So it’s no surprise that many Quebec parents may want to take time off until schools reopen.”
Whether working remotely or on-site, parents have had to sacrifice many workdays over the past year to meet their responsibilities around their children’s education.
Absenteeism can quickly become a challenge for organizations and lead to several issues, such as:
- Reduced productivity and performance due to delays and a decline in service quality
- Lower motivation among other employees
- Last-minute team reorganization
- Redistribution of workload
Within our organization, it wasn’t feasible for an employee to have a baby on their lap while handling a customer service phone role. Similarly, for parents supervising online schooling, we had no choice but to adjust schedules, redistribute tasks, provide additional training, and prepare for the unexpected.
We also had to consider employees’ financial needs given the constraints they were facing—keeping in mind that their absences were not a choice.
Strategic planning is a detailed process that helps us identify blind spots within an organization. Absenteeism comes with a cost. And then there’s the famous Plan B—which, let’s be honest, isn’t always ideal when situations arise. Day-to-day urgency can easily disrupt our well-known Eisenhower Matrix.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, team lead, or HR professional, the person responsible for operations must be creative, patient, structured—and able to deal with the unexpected.
What’s the key? Unfortunately, there’s no secret formula. But communication is always essential.
Understanding your employees’ reality—no matter the size of your organization—is a critical part of effective management. Every situation is different.
A strong team leader must find solutions tailored to their challenges and be able to manage uncertainty, even under high stress (while keeping emotions in check).
Often, forced changes become the starting point for new approaches or innovative solutions to everyday challenges.
Dear employers and entrepreneurs, keep in mind the core mission of entrepreneurship: to give back.
Be understanding—your team will return the favour.
Surround yourself with strong, capable people—people who are even better than you!
