Managers may often feel that they ‘know’ when employees are faking an absence. The gut feeling may be based on their personal relationship with the employee or the fact that they have noticed patterns of absence e.g. repeatedly taking sick days on a Friday. Relying on instict is not an approach we recommend. This article […]

Does your organisation have fiendishly complex absence triggers and policies? Do you need to juggle a combination of different terms and conditions for different staff members? Does the policy change based on length of service? Do you want to track pro-rata allowances for part-time employees? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, Engage […]

Do you struggle to record who on your payroll is isolating, shielding, furloughed or recently reported possible Covid-19 symptoms? Are you tired of keeping your teams updated with ever-changing public health advice? Is your company balancing the tightrope between safeguarding staff whilst staying in business? If so, you are definitely not alone. The good news […]

Absence is a management issue, not a medical one. That is why similar organisations with similar work profiles can have very different absence levels. The difference is not that the employees in one company are more ill. The difference is that one company is managing absence better than the other one. Any absence is a […]

Early intervention has always been our mantra. The sooner an absence is reviewed and the appropriate action taken to put a plan in place for a return to work, the better the outcomes. Short of spotting any warning signs for problem before it escalates to an absence, there’s no better time for early intervention than […]

We recently attended the Health and Wellbeing @Work conference in Birmingham where Senior Researcher from Tilburg University Dr Margot Joosen presented her findings from a study focusing on returning employees to work who were or had been absent with a mental health issue.

At the recent Health and Wellbeing @Work conference in Birmingham, Royal Mail’s Lead Ergonomist, Corinne Parsons, presented how they had planned their strategy for reducing absence due to musculoskeletal disorders. As background information Ms. Parsons highlighted that the main long-term sickness absence causes at Royal Mail are mental health (20%), musculoskeletal disorders (23%), and injury […]

Britain’s Healthiest Workplace has found that employees with flexible hours and the ability to work from home report lower absences and greater job satisfaction. They also consider themselves to be in better physical and mental health. Simply put, inflexible hours affect employee wellbeing. Employees based in the office or facing long commutes are less productive, […]

A new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will soon replace the old Data Protection Act (1998). The GDPR will apply in the UK from 25 May 2018. The government has confirmed that the UK’s decision to leave the EU will not affect the commencement of the GDPR.

For the first time since 2009, XpertHR annual absence survey 2017 shows an average absence level above 3%. Among the 588 survey respondents that provided data on absence rates for 2016, the national average stood at 3.2% of working time, equivalent to 7.4 days per employee. To help compare with the preferred metric used in CIPD annual absence survey, […]