Attendance Management
An illness or injury can occur at any time, to anyone, and while there is evidence to show that work is good for health, absences from work are inevitable in many cases, and are a fact of life.
Tackling this will not eliminate employees from injuries and illnesses, nor will it prevent any absence from work. However, a good attendance management programme can improve many health and safety aspects of an organisation.
Sickness Absence and Attendance Management
Attendance management is crucial in keeping business costs to a minimum. A well-run attendance management programme can help improve the health of organisations as well as individual employees.
Sickness absence varies in length, and can be described as either short-term, medium-term or long-term. These absence lengths vary from being off less than five days, to being of for more than four months.
Common reasons for sickness absence
Reasons for short-term absence include:
- headaches
- colds
- flu
- gastric upsets
Reasons for long-term sickness absence include:
- musculoskeletal disorders (e.g. back, neck and shoulder pain)
- mental health problems such as stress, anxiety and depression
The Costs of Sickness Absence: Key Facts
- Sickness absence costs UK employers an average of £659 per employee per year
- Each employee has an average of 8.4 days absence per year
- Measuring the true cost of sickness absence includes:
- occupational sick pay
- statutory sick pay
- replacement labour
- overtime
- reduced performance
- Administration
- Organisations most affected by sickness absence are those that have no attendance management policy (usually small to medium businesses)
What does the Law say?
There is currently no law covering attendance management.
However, The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR), state that an employer must record and report accidents and ill health at work.
The General Health and Safety Legislations cover all employers and workplaces, whilst it is the moral duty of employers to protect their employees and members of the public.
Risk assessments, reviewing wok practices, and revising health and safety arrangements should always follow the absence of an employee if it was caused by a work-related condition.
Managing Attendance and Absence
There are many different routes that employers chose to take in managing sickness absence and attendance. However, a few points which are important for any employer to follow are:
All employees should be made aware of the sickness absence policy if available
Procedures should be documented in the company handbook
A team of professionals should be involved. Such a team can consist of roles and disciplines such as:
- Occupational Health,
- Human Resource or Personnel,
- Line Managers,
- Trade Unions,
- Training Departments,
- Counsellors,
- Physiotherapists.
These services can be outsourced from the NHS and other recognised bodies, as many businesses and organisations may not have access to this level and range of expertise in-house.
Good Practices
It is important that the employer is aware of good practices in attendance management for supporting an employee’s return after an accident at work.
After an illness or injury, an employer may need to make considerable changes to the workplace, to the employee’s role at work, etc.
On returning back to work, an employee may feel awkward, lack confidence or anxious, so it is vital that their employer is prepared to guide and support them in their return to the workplace.
Good practices considered helpful in assisting employees back to work include:
- Regular contact from managers
- Return to work interviews
- Temporary or permanent reduction in working hours
- Temporary or permanent change in work tasks or workload
- Referral to an Occupational Health department
- Stress counselling/employee assistance programmes
- Additional training on return
- Formal return-to-work programme
- Change in work equipment
- Working from home
- Access to physiotherapy
- Fast referral to private medical care
