Absence pattern report

Purpose

Convert dated absence entries into a reconciled view of absence events, absent days, team rates, and recurring patterns. The report distinguishes recorded facts from interpretation so HR can investigate capacity effects without guessing why a person was absent.

Scope

Cover the supplied absence ledger, employee or team directory, working-day calendar, and attendance policy for the requested period. Calculate event counts, calendar or working days lost, rates, and period-over-period movement only where the denominator is defined.

Excluded: medical diagnosis, protected-characteristic inference, individual performance conclusions, employment decisions, and edits to attendance records.

Data basis

• Absence table columns employee_id, team, absence_type, start_date, end_date, recorded_days, status, and source_id.
• Employee directory columns employee_id, team, manager, and employment_status.
• Working-day calendar and headcount snapshot for the selected period and comparison period.
• Attendance policy defining absence types, inclusion rules, and privacy suppression threshold.

Result

Produce an absence report with period totals, team comparison, type breakdown, trend table, and cited observations, plus a data-quality sheet containing duplicate, overlap, missing-date, and denominator issues.

Quality criteria

• Every total reconciles to the included ledger rows and states whether days are calendar or working days.
• Each team rate names its headcount and working-day denominator.
• Overlapping events are not double-counted without an explicit policy rule.
• Suppressed small groups are marked suppressed, not estimated.
• Every observation cites source row IDs and the reporting period.
• No absence type is treated as a medical explanation.

Instructions

Use status=approved rows unless the policy explicitly includes pending entries, and retain excluded rows with an exclusion reason. Compute event count from distinct absence_id; compute duration from the policy’s day-count convention. Flag overlapping intervals for the same employee before aggregating. Compare teams only when both headcount and working-day denominators exist. Use the company privacy threshold from the policy; never invent one. Describe patterns as concentration or recurrence in the records, not as causes. Keep employee-level detail out of aggregate sections when suppression applies.

Adapt before use

• Map the ledger’s identifiers, status values, and absence types to the columns named above.
• Define whether rates use calendar days, scheduled working days, or contracted hours.
• Add the privacy suppression threshold and the approved/pending inclusion rule.
• Provide the headcount snapshot and comparison period used for trend rates.