Absence Triggers and the Bradford Factor

The Bradford Factor is a formula that scores absence by weighting the number of separate absences more heavily than the total days lost. It is widely used, easy to compute, and carries a specific risk.

What it does

It multiplies the number of separate absence episodes by itself, then by total days.

So several short absences score far higher than one long one.

The intent is to target frequent short-term absence, on the theory that it is more disruptive and more likely to be avoidable.

The arithmetic is simple, which is most of why it spread.

Why it is risky

Frequent short absences are the characteristic pattern of many disabilities and chronic conditions. Migraine, inflammatory conditions, mental health conditions, recurring symptoms of a managed illness.

A scoring system that weights episode count is therefore weighted against disabled employees, by construction rather than by intent.

In jurisdictions with disability discrimination law, applying a trigger without adjustment is a recognised risk, and cases have turned on exactly this.

Pregnancy-related absence is separately protected in many places and must not count toward such triggers at all.

The other problem

It encourages people to come in ill, because one long absence scores better than two short ones.

Which spreads infection, produces poor work, and lengthens the eventual absence.

Small businesses feel this most, because one person working through an illness affects everyone in a small room.

If a trigger is used at all

Exclude protected absences — disability-related where an adjustment applies, pregnancy-related, and anything covered by a statutory right.

Treat a trigger as a prompt for a conversation, never as an automatic consequence.

Have a named person review every trigger before anything happens, with authority to set it aside.

Record the review, including when a trigger was set aside and why.

Apply it consistently, because selective application is the other half of the discrimination risk.

What to do instead

Look at the pattern with the person, which is what the trigger was standing in for.

Ask whether something can be adjusted: hours, duties, a phased arrangement, a different shift.

Occupational health advice where the absence is health-related and persistent, which is cheaper than most people assume.

Distinguish short-term from long-term absence, which are different problems needing different responses, and which a single score conflates.

The honest summary

A number that ranks people by absence is attractive because it removes judgement from an uncomfortable conversation.

The judgement is the part that matters, and removing it is how a small business ends up defending a discrimination claim it did not intend to create.

Pregnancy-related absence

The exclusion that is absolute in many jurisdictions.

Pregnancy-related absence must not count toward absence triggers, warnings or dismissal decisions in a large number of places.

Not "should be considered" — must not count.

Which means any scoring system needs a way to exclude it entirely, and many products do not have one.

Check this specifically before enabling any trigger feature, because it is the error most likely to produce an automatic claim.

Connect policy to configuration

The practical choices behind this note can be compared with read the feature details. Keep the written purpose in control of the setup, enable only data needed for that purpose and review the result with affected employees.