Concerns the inability or unwillingness of staff to turn up for work. The rate of absenteeism is calculated by dividing the total number of working days lost (not worked by absent employees) in a given period of time by the total number of potential working days in the trading period and multiplying the resulting figure by a hundred to give a percentage. Ideally, absenteeism for genuine reasons should be excluded from the figures, (although this may be difficult to determine), to enable any human resource problems within the business to be more easily identified. Obviously the higher the percentage, the worse the business is performing. High levels of absenteeism could ultimately negatively affect a business’s profitability and potential causes should be investigated to identify ways in which the situation might be improved.