Invest time in people. Understand why sickness has increased. Is it due to a bug going around or what has changed since you called the sick level normal? Ensure that remaining staff is not overwhelmed with increased workload but help them to prioritize. Show that you are part of the team and behave that way. If individuals abuse your sick policy you have to manage appropriate action (confirmation by company doctor, reduced pay, warning or dismissal) but never ever abuse your authority when employees are sick.
Map your Unit KPIs with daily staff performance and hold them accountable for it each day/month through a PMC-Performance monitoring criteria. Over and above their fixed salaries, lure them with a monetary benefit for candidates achieving above performance. For example, if you unit KPIs target accumulate of100 basis points and a certain portion of it is directly affected by staff absenteeism, divide that set of points in number of working days in month and subsequently, deduct points from staff performance for every day they don't show up to the work.
Absence Management is critical for running operations .As a people Manager it is very important that a strong Daily capacity tracker is maintained so that we even if few people call for a sick leave you can still run the s must be followed by proper forecasting and grooming the people to understand the importance of their presence for the interest of the business.
