• Occupational Health
• Assessment
• Ad Hoc Counselling
• Services
• Psychological
• Assessment
• Absence
• Management System
• & Recording
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 Absence
management and recording
Managing absence within an organisation can be very difficult. Even the best manual recording systems under report by something in the region of 15% and they are a demand on management time. In addition information can be recorded inaccurately during holiday or staff changeover.
The ideal way to monitor absence is to do it externally to the management structure. The business then only needs to know whether the absence is appropriate or inappropriate and which cases require management intervention as opposed to those which would benefit from medical intervention.
We work with an expert supplier who has designed a contact centre based absence tracking system which can be implemented quickly, efficiently and inexpensively in any organisation.
This records all episodes of absence and analyses the data to provide human resources with real time reporting on which cases require higher level input. Action can then be taken by the company's own occupational health provider or alternatively we can also provide case management services.
This approach allows action at the very beginning of an absence. It also encourages employees to take responsibility for minor health issues by avoiding a "parental" approach. This encourages movement away from a culture of dependence to one of self-determination. All research shows that people who take responsibility for themselves fare better in terms of health and stress in particular.
Using this system an absence is recorded and key questions are asked about a limited range of conditions. These include stress, anxiety, depression and musculoskeletal disorders. These are the conditions most likely to be related to more problematic cases. The other question is whether the absence is anything work related. These questions flag up the conditions that lead to the highest levels and most troublesome type of absence and if they are identified it raises a red flag with HR and management.
This also allows health and safety to be informed if there is anything work related on which health and safety action is required.
The beauty of all of this is that it is a modest flat fee per employee and an organisation can remove all the irritating day to day management responsibility for recording absence and identifying which cases need further action. They also have professional input on what action should be taken and the correct type of action. This places them in a very strong position both in terms of managing the absence and in terms of accountability for any actions that they take.
This approach deliberately moves away from the model of nurse advice help lines for two reasons. The first is that they are expensive to implement and the second is that the employees who are most likely to be malingering are unlikely to respond to telephone nurse intervention with simple medical advice. It also removes argument between management and staff about whether or not the individual was actually ill on a specific day and allows them to discuss the problems in terms of overall levels of absence and whether their absence is appropriate in context with absence levels within the business.
Finally, employers can go into the web based function of the system and look at their own statistics. They can assess these across their business and look at where absence 'hotspots' occur and take appropriate action to deal with them.
This whole approach is based on two simple concepts. The first is to move away from asking for definition of trivial complaints and push the responsibility back to the individual employee to look after their own health. The second is to draw a clear distinction between healthy individuals who are taking an above average level of absence and require management intervention and people who have underlying health problems who would benefit from healthcare intervention.
It also allows organisations to consider ways in which they may use resources to 'fast track' treatment for people with specific conditions in order to enable them back to work. This may be appropriate where NHS resources are not adequate to ensure swift and appropriate treatment.
Early results show that this system can bring down absence by 30%, its strengths are simplicity, low cost and clarity of advice.
In summary it leaves management free to intervene with the confidence that OH professionals have given a green light to do so. This can be invaluable in supporting the conversation with the employee because the manager can avoid being drawn in to unnecessary discussion of medical detail. They can focus on the true problem, which is not whether an individual was ill on a particular day and the day off is justified, but rather the individual's attitude to managing their own health and attending work reliably and fulfilling their contract of employment, which is at the end of the day what they are paid to do. |
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