Just how much has absence cost your company this year?

Jan 28 2008 By The Journal

SICKNESS absence cost the UK economy £13.4bn in 2006, according to figures from the CBI, although most absence is caused by genuine illness, absenteeism remains “an issue” for many employers.

Workers took an average of seven days off sick last year, up by around half a day on 2005, losing 175 million working days, according to the CBI.

The business organisation surveyed 400 private firms and public sector organisations and found employers believed around 12% of absence involved staff pulling a “sickie” at a cost to the economy of £1.6bn.

Most companies accept a level of absence due to sickness amongst employees is inevitable. However, the implications for production and work output, together with the impact on work colleagues, must be considered.

Also the company should be aware of the staff that are suffering from ill health, and should treat them sympathetically.

Why monitor absence?

To understand if it is a problem, to reduce the cost on the business, to ensure employees are aware of potential problems, and strengthen employer and employee relationships.

What problems can it cause?

Excessive demands on company sick pay, additional overtime costs, lost or delayed production, disruption to work patterns.

How to prevent absence

• Provide a good physical working environment.

• Ensure health and safety standards are maintained.

• Good working relationships.

• Managing absence.

• Monitoring of individual absence records.

• Identifying trends of absence.

• Return-to-work interviews.

Introduce a reporting procedure, monitor long-term absence as well as short-term.

Keys to success.

Early intervention – it is well documented that the longer an employee is away from work, the less likely they are to return to work.

Professional support – by using occupational health specialists you are able to remove the health assessment from HR and line managers.

Workplace adjustments – reasonable adjustments to the working environment will reduce the risk of similar ill health recurring.

Graded return-to-work plan allows the employee to make transition back to work at a manageable pace.

Summary

The underlying purpose of any attendance procedure should be to encourage satisfactory levels of attendance, at the same time a staged procedure will ensure fair and consistent treatment for employees who are frequently absent, and allow the employer ultimately to dismiss employees who, over a period of time, fail to reach the standards defined as the minimum acceptable.

Provided the employer acts professionally and follows its procedure properly, such dismissal will be deemed to be fair in law.

Absenteeism is a notoriously hard area to tackle but, sickness absence managed positively with procedures in place, spending time and effort examining the underlying cause of the absence can save a company pounds and increase output.

Some points to ponder:

• If no absence, how many people would we need?

• How much would sick pay be?

• What is the cost of overtime to cover sickness absence?

• If we reduce absence, do we increase labour variance?

• Which is the greater cost, short or long term?

Good Health = Good Business. For more information, contact No1 Priority Health on (01207) 583999 or visit the website at www.onepriorityhealth.co.uk.