What is the Bradford Factor?
The Bradford Factor is an absence score calculated as B = S² × D, where S is the number of separate absence spells and D is the total days absent over a set period, usually the last 52 weeks. Squaring the spells makes frequent short absences score far higher than a single long one.
Run the numbers and the design becomes obvious. Ten one-day absences give 10 × 10 × 10 = 1,000. One ten-day absence gives 1 × 1 × 10 = 10. Same ten days off, a hundred times the score.
That gap is the whole idea. Short, scattered absences disrupt a team more than one planned stretch, because nobody can arrange cover for a day they didn't see coming. The formula makes that disruption visible in one number.
Employers who use it usually set trigger points: a score at which a manager holds a conversation, and a higher one at which a formal review starts. Those levels are policy, not part of the formula. So a score of 200 means something different at every company that uses it.
Counting spells is where teams slip. Three consecutive days off are one spell, not three. Two separate Mondays are two spells. Get that wrong and every score on the sheet is wrong with it.
Where this shows up in PeopleMuster
PeopleMuster records every absence as a dated attendance status or an approved leave request by type, and the attendance table exports to CSV, so each person's spells and days are there to count.
Questions people ask
How do you calculate the Bradford Factor?
Square the number of absence spells, then multiply by the total days absent. Four spells totalling six days gives 4 × 4 × 6 = 96. Most employers measure over a rolling 52 weeks.
What is a high Bradford Factor score?
Each employer sets its own trigger points, so there is no universal threshold. As a sense of scale, one spell of five days scores 5, while five one-day spells score 125.
Does approved leave count towards the Bradford Factor?
Usually not. The score is built for unplanned absence, such as sickness, so pre-approved annual leave and public holidays are left out. Your absence policy should say which leave types count.