Easy-to-use Attendance Policy Template for Your Small Business

Remember back in primary school when certain kids got stickers for Excellent Attendance? It always seemed like such an easy get—how hard was it to show up to school every day?

Enter real life, filled with all kinds of unexpected occurances: a missed bus, a flat tire, a power outage that causes your alarm not to go off at the same time as your phone mysteriously resets itself so you miss that alarm too… And while there aren’t any stickers for perfect attendance as an adult, it is pretty important to, you know, show up to work on time.

Whether it’s one of life’s oh-so-annoying wrenches or an employee who regularly and consistently misses shifts or shows up late, this is why, as a business owner, you need an attendance policy. And lucky for you, we’ve got a free attendance policy template included just below.

Ahead, we’ll tackle all things attendance. You’ll find guidelines on what an attendance policy should be what to consider putting into the policy, if there are any laws or regulations to be mindful of, and how to make the policy inclusive of all employee needs.

Let’s dive in—as long as you’re not supposed to be somewhere, okay?

Even with the best communication for what time employees need to arrive for their shifts, it’s still important to have an attendance policy in place.

What is an attendance policy?

An attendance policy is a legal document between the employee and employer. It outlines some, if not all, of the following:

Company rules and procedures around shifts and attending work.
What’s considered absenteeism (missing shifts).
Consequences or disciplinary action (including dismissal) around consistently arriving late or missing work without notice or a reasonable justification.
What to do in extraordinary circumstances (e.g. emergencies, public transit strikes, natural disasters, etc.)

Basically, an attendance policy helps your business and employees have a clear understanding around any event that affects showing up for a shift, parrticularly when inconvenient events occur. Because even a business’s most dedicated employees—or you yourself—are sometimes late for a shift or have to miss work altogether for urgent matters. An attendance policy keeps a framework for how to proceed.

With really clear outlines, a solid policy can and should become part of your business’s guiding principles and onboarding. It should be easy-to-use, understandable, and take both employee welfare and business needs into consideration.

How do you write an attendance policy?

Creating and enforcing a formal attendance policy may depend on the size of your business. If you’re a small business starting out, there may be a few non-negotiables you ask your employees to keep in mind when it comes to work attendance or time off (or even shift swapping).

If your business is growing, and you’re onboarding more and more employees, it’s probably best to put something official in place to refer to, and create a sense of equality across the board for employees.

At its core, an attendance policy helps keep employees protected while allowing business operations to run as smoothly and productively as possible.

Below are a few considerations to keep in mind when writing out a brand new attendance policy for your small business.

Understand your business’s needs.

No one knows your business better than you. What your business’s overall goals are and strategies to get there will help inform your attendance policy. If having employees on-site or available online is vital to running your business effectively and smoothly, that will need to be built into both how you schedule your employees and your attendance policy. Operational needs and productivity goals (including daily sales goals) are all factors into crafting a useful attendance policy.

Remember: while you want to be considerate of your team members and unexpected occurances, it’s still okay to balance the needs of your growing business.

Consider the objectives of an attendance policy.

What do you and your employees get out of having an attendance policy? This question should be the foundation of your attendance policy and what you include. If, for example, there’s a lot of employee absenteeism at your business, this policy will give a written and legal notice of your rights as an employer to enforce in the business you run.

On the flip side, what if you have employees with medical needs who require time off but may not have a lot of flexibility to find someone to cover their shift? An attendance policy can include special case scenarios that protect those employees, which your team will appreciate.

Make it easy to understand.

An attendance policy doesn’t need to be lengthy or written in confusing language. Define parts of the attendance policy—like tardiness or no-call, no-shows—in plain language, including the consequences that can occur if employees don’t take their work responsibilities seriously.

Keep it simple.

An attendance policy doesn’t need to be overly complicated. We’ll go through an example of an attendance policy further in this guide but the primary point to keep in mind is simplifying where possible. Keep the format tight: overview, objectives, attendance definitions, consequences, etc.

Have a way to track employee time.

Before you start writing an attendance policy, make sure you have effective and efficient time attendance software that employees can easily use to clock in and clock out of their shifts. Tracking employee time is necessary to understand if employees are late, absent, or just not clocking in when they should be.

Tip: Outline clear expectations around workarounds like buddy punching, since even though someone may be ‘on the clock’ on paper, you’re still short a team member. Look for a time-tracking app that provides every team member with their own log ins and even GPS tracking to avoid this form of time theft.

Adjust your policy over time if needed.

It’s worth thinking about your attendance policy as a living and breathing document. Outdated practices don’t do anyone any favors. There are a lot of inclusive considerations to be made in today’s work world that prioritize an employee’s physical or mental health while also ensuring your business can keep functioning.

Update and adjust the policy, and get employee feedback and sign off when you need to.

Laws and regulations to consider when creating an attendance policy.

When it comes to an attendance policy, there’s no Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulation, including how employers determine and execute on disciplinary actions. But when it comes to paying employees and time keeping, that’s where the FLSA has some regulatory merit—and that can impact attendance. Proper records of time worked and paying accordingly for that is part of the FLSA, inclusive of rounding time up to the nearest five minute mark or quarter of an hour.

It’s worth referencing the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in your attendance as legal considerations for your employees. These are example of other federal laws that keep workers with extraordinary circumstances or different lived experiences protected in their employment.

What to include in your employee attendance policy.

Now that we’ve gone through the essentials of what an attendance policy is and some meaningful considerations, let’s understand what should be included, especially when you start to think about customizing your own attendance policy template.

The specifics of the policy may change from business to business, and depends on your business size, including the number of employees. Think of this a general guide on the important aspects to include in your employee attendance policy.

Overview of the policy.

Your summary should appear at the top of your policy and set expectations for your team around attendance at work. It can also note some of the other aspects of the policy, like tardiness, absenteeism, or job abandonment, and that there will be consequences for ongoing examples of those.

Expectations for work attendance.

This needs to be specific to your business needs. Do you require your employees on-site or in-store whenever they’re scheduled? Is there a remote or hybrid offering, particularly for roles like managers or part-time team members like accountants or HR reps?

Set clear expectations on how your employees show up and when. For example, you may want to write that a shift starts at a certain time, but it’s expected employees arrive at least 10 minutes beforehand to prepare and clock in on time (check your state’s legislation to ensure you’re paying for that early time if required!). Is there a grace period for when someone starts, or is it by the minute? This section of the policy might also include expectations around breaks, like paid lunches.

A word of advice: sometimes it’s hard not to make things personal. Think about how you would react if one of your best employees was consistently late vs. someone struggling. As a manager, you need to ensure you’re treating your team members the same, and there isn’t a show of favortism.

How to report absences.

No matter how hard you encourage your team to plan ahead and request time off, both explained and unexplained absences and late arrivals can and will happen. In addition to late arrivals and no-shows, sometimes employees need to take personal time off (PTO) for a number of reasons: vacations, medical issues, family matters, appointments, and everything in-between.

This section of the policy details to your employees how to request time off, if there are any parameters around time off (including a set number of PTO or sick days), and when and how to contact supervisors or managers for unplanned time off.

Unplanned time off is a fact of life. Emergencies happen. Write your policy so that it clearly indicates how much time an employee needs to notify a manager before their shift starts. That way they can quickly find someone else to work the shift, or find another solution.

Clock in and clock out policy.

Clocking in and out for a shift is important for attendance—and payroll. Your scheduling and time tracking software is going to hold all employee data of who worked when and for how long. One huge benefit of having a solid time clock app is that your own employees are in control of their information. Emphasize that in the policy. If an employee is on-time but keeps forgetting to clock in at the start of their shift, that may impact how they’re perceived by management and what they get paid.

Tardiness and early departures from work.

The following sections on what constitutes an absence can be broken up into each of their own or grouped together under a more broad absence. We’ve broken them out here to emphasize what to include in each.

Tardiness, or lateness, is imperative to include in your attendance policy. It may be worth having a separate definitions section to detail each different attendance term. Tardiness includes lateness to work or late arrival back from a break.

Early departures from work include leaving a shift before it’s scheduled to finish without managerial approval. Including this in your attendance policy is important. Just because it’s a slow shift doesn’t always mean it’s okay to duck out early—it’s the realm of a supervisor to determine if an employee leaves early or not.

Unforeseen absences.

An unforeseen absence may include a family or medical emergency, or a last minute appointment, or illness. There are a number of reasons why an employee will have an unforeseen or unplanned absence from work. Make the definition of what an unforeseen absence is and what to do about it (e.g. communicating with a manager as soon as possible.)

It may be worth mentioning what a pattern of unforeseen circumstances can yield. There’s a separate disciplinary action section in the policy, but consider putting here that a pattern of unforeseen absences may result in some kind of punishment.

Advice: In order to keep your top employees (and bring in new ones), make sure that you’re balancing the needs of your employees with the business. For example, a single parent who’s balancing multiple child care needs might struggle to make an early shift time that interferes with school drop off. Instead of them always showing up late and worried, think about rescheduling their shifts. Or, if you have an employee who struggles with dyslexia and you only share their shift schedule in a written format, think about finding other ways to let them know to accomodate them.

Job abandonment.

Sometimes an employee is scheduled for work and doesn’t show. Make it clear in your policy what job abandonment looks like and how many recurring days equates to job abandonment.

It’s important to understand that an employee may be in distress or something bad happened. Take the steps to outline how you’ll reach out to an employee to ensure their safety before determining they’ve abandoned their job.

Disciplinary actions.

This section is one of the most important for your attendance policy, so we’ve made sure to outline it clearly in the attendance policy template. The goal is to make it clear to employees the consequences of the above actions. Think of your document as a contract between you and your employee, and failure to comply can result in any of the disciplinary actions.

Make the disciplinary actions clear. For infractions like tardiness, a verbal or written warning may suffice. For a pattern of behavior, disciplinary actions can follow an escalation, which may include job termination.

Supervisory or employer role and accountability.

As the owner or manager, you and your other managers (if you have them), need to enforce your policy. Clearly outline the role of supervisors and managers compared to an owner so that it’s clear who’s making judgement calls.

Employee sign-off.

Get employees to sign off on the document and keep it for your records. This helps make sure that when it comes to your attendance policy, everyone’s on the same page and clearly understands the goals, definitions, and reprucussions.

How to create an inclusive attendance policy.

Not every employee is the same. While time and attendance is important to every business, it’s also very important to treat employees with care and safety. Use inclusive language, empathy, and opportunities for nuance wherever possible in your attendance policy.

You may have employees who are differently abled and need more time to get to and from work. Write in that time and attendance may be different depending on the employee. That way an employee who is, for example, time blind, can feel safe knowing their experience is taken into consideration.

Get ready to change your business for the better with a strong attendance policy.

Having an attendance policy in place keeps both you and your employees accountable to your business. Think of an attendance policy as an additional resource in the toolbox to keep your small business running the way you need it to.

Consider using time attendance software from Homebase to keep you and your employees on track with all things hours worked related. Employees can efficiently clock in and clock out on the Homebase app, and keep track of their hours worked, both for attendance and payroll.

Download your free attendance policy template.

The team at Homebase knows your attendance policy is important to both you and your employees. We created a free attendance policy template to make this process easier on you.

Download this free, downloadable attendance policy template to help you shape yours: Attendance policy template for your small business