Absence rates continue to average at around eight days and at a cost of around 598 pounds per employee per year so what can be done to encourage workers back to work and is discipline the only way to cap soaring sickness levels? Annie Hayes, HR Zone Editor reports.

Rising absence?
According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) annual absence 2006 report, levels actually fell by 0.2% to 3.5% of working time equating to eight days per employee per year. Absence also fell across all sectors apart from the private services sector, where levels remained static.

But despite the cheering figures absence at this level still costs. With a cost of just under £600 per employee per year at current levels, employers cannot afford to be complacent and Stephen Walker, Director of Motivation Matters says that zero absence is the only level that should be acceptable.

“There should be an expectation of good health with subsequent good attendance.”

And he notes that smaller organisations only have half the absence rates of larger ones suggesting that absence can be managed to a lower level. So how can employers achieve better than average rates of absence?

Understanding the problems:
The first step says Walker is recognising the patterns.

“It seems that 20% of organisations still do not collect absence data. I favour forms, self certified absence forms, which are the basis of return-to-work interviews conducted by the immediate line manager. The form should specify the cause of the absence and a recommendation from the line manager regarding any extraordinary action they think is needed. They should sign to agree that the absence comes under the organisation’s umbrella absence payment rules or not. The line manager’s actions should be reviewed by HR and appropriate action taken,” he says.

Having a palatable method of monitoring rates and causes goes a long way to dealing with the issues. According to the CBI’s Absence and Labour survey of May 2006 short-term minor illnesses, such as colds or flu were overwhelmingly ranked as the most significant causes of absence. A finding that the CIPD concurs with.

They go onto say that among non-manual employees, the top two causes of short-term absence are minor illnesses, followed by stress. While back pain climbed ahead of musculo-skeletal injury as the number one cause of long-term absence for manual employees.

Stress remains the number one ranked reason for long-term absence for non-manual employees, with acute medical conditions rated the second most significant cause, ahead of mental ill health, say the CIPD. The number of employers reporting an increase in stress-related absence continued to increase last year, with 46% reporting an increase, compared to a 39% increase the previous year.

Monitoring the patterns goes a long way to finding a solution and Walker suggests a thorough review is conducted every six months.

Reporting lines:
One business that has curbed its absence levels through an identification of the problems and putting in place clear reporting lines is Rochdale Boroughwide Housing. According to the CIPD absence survey, it reduced its level of employee absence by nearly 40% since 2002 following the introduction of a nurse-led absence management call centre and employee healthcare scheme.

At the height of its problems absence was running at a whopping 18 days per employee per year.

Gareth Swarbrick, business support director for Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, said the organisation very quickly identified absence as a major challenge that had to be tackled. The first step taken was to ensure that the existing absence management policy was applied properly.

The actions did bring results, reducing absence levels to 15.5 days by 2003/04. However, Swarbrick said that this was still regarded as too high. As a result the organisation employed the services of Active Health Partners (AHP), which uses a nurse-led call centre to manage absence.

At the same time as introducing the AHP initiative, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing also signed up to an employee healthcare scheme, run by Westfield Health. At a cost to the company of £52 per employee per year, all members of staff are covered by a scheme which allows them to claim back health and dental-related expenses up to a certain level as well as priority access for MRI and CAT scans.

Since the introduction of the two schemes absence has fallen again significantly to 11 days per employee per year for 2005/06.

But Paul Avis of Employ-Mend Ltd questions the usefulness of nurses taking calls and says they have been badly received generally by employees and Trade Unions.

Furthermore says Avis, “Our own primary data based on calls that we have taken, found that approximately 80% of the calls are for non-sickness absence (how can a nurse help with elder/child care issues?), cold/flu, headache/migraine, tummy upset/food poisoning etc.”

Avis says that nurses can add little value where conditions such as these persist to be the problem.

So if reporting lines such as these don’t work what’s the alternative? British Airways and The Royal Mail believe the answer is rewarding staff to turn up to work.

Rewarding attendance:
In 2004 the Royal Mail and British Airways introduced attendance bonus schemes. Attendance levels at Royal Mail had risen to levels that required addressing. At the time the organisation reported that as many as 10,000 Royal Mail staff were off work at any one time that is 6.5% of the operational workforce.

Royal Mail staff with exemplary attendance records were duly rewarded with the chance of winning one of 12 weekend breaks. For staff that did not take any sick leave for a period of six months, a Ford Focus worth £12,000 was the prize.

British Airways also jumped on the attendance bandwagon, implementing a staggered attendance, incentive scheme as follows:

• £200 for staff with no more than four days absence between 1 October 2004 and 31 March 2005.




• £400 for staff with no more than six days absence between 1 April 2005 and 31 December 2005.




• £400 for staff with no more than six days absence between 1 January 2006 and 30 September 2006.




• £1000 for staff with no more than 16 days absence between October 2004 and September 2006.

In 2004 BA reported absence levels averaging 17 days per year.

This year the Royal Mail have heralded the scheme a success. According to the postal group postmen and women’s daily attendance levels rose by almost 11%. Sickness absence levels averaged 5.7% between August 2004 and January 2005, compared to an average of 6.4% in the same period of the previous year – representing an extra 1,000 people at work collecting, sorting and delivering mail on any one day.

And under the first scheme to recognise good attendance, 37 people won a new car, 75 people won £2,000 of holiday vouchers and over 90,000 won £150 holiday vouchers.

But despite the Royal Mail’s good cheer at their improved absence records, rewarding for attendance does not appear to form a whole solution.

Ben Willmott, CIPD Employee Relations Adviser tells me that attendance incentives have to form part of a managed and co-ordinated approach to reducing absence levels and are not seen as a solution in themselves.

“Employers need to first get the management basics right. They need to ensure that employees have well defined job roles, achievable targets and the support, training and recognition to help them achieve these targets.

“Line managers need to be trained in managing absence and need to take responsibility for managing absence through policies such as return to work interviews, which allow staff to raise any underlying causes of absence. Employees with health problems also need to be referred to occupational health professionals at an early stage.

“One of the challenges of managing attendance incentive schemes is to ensure that they don’t penalise individuals who have genuine health problems and they don’t effectively discriminate against any employee, for example on the basis of disability.”

But what if these softly-softly approaches fail to curb rising sickness? Is the only way forward a zero-tolerance approach?

Zero-tolerance:
According to the CIPD’s annual survey disciplinary methods remain popular. In all, 82% of respondents report that their organisation’s sickness absence policy refers to the use of the disciplinary procedure in relation to persistent absence.

But says the report there are significant differences between the sectors in their use of disciplinary and capability procedures for unacceptable levels of employee absence.

Public service employers are much less likely than private sector organisations to use disciplinary procedures and to cite conduct as a reason for dismissal in their management of employee absence.

Wilmott says that almost 90% of manufacturing and production employers’ policies on sickness absence refer to the disciplinary procedure, while only 74% of public service organisations’ policies do.

In contrast, public service organisations rely on capability procedures more than the other main sectors. About 80% of public service employers’ policies on absence refer to the use of capability procedures, compared to just 55% among manufacturing and production and 59% among private sector employers.

The survey finds that manufacturing and production organisations are most likely to have dismissed employees following unacceptable levels of absence in the last 12 months, with non-profit and public service employers least likely to have done so.

Public service employers estimate that 66% of absence-related dismissals are argued on the grounds of capability and that just 13% of such dismissals are for the reason of conduct.

Manufacturing and production organisations, in contrast, are most likely to cite conduct as a reason for absence-related dismissal. These employers report that 44% of dismissals for absence are argued on the grounds of conduct, while 33% are justified on capability grounds.

Curbing bogus sickies is clearly one area that can be dealt with via the disciplinary route. Walker says, however, that employers must start off with the expectation that the absence is for a genuine cause and where triggers such as the Football World Cup may cause employees to tell a little white lie management should put in place procedures to recognise that employees will want to keep up with these interests – allowing workers time whilst at work, for example, to catch a game can greatly reduce the problems associated with truancy.

Recognising that not all absence is due to a clear cut inability to work and acting accordingly is the key. These mechanisms should negate the need to go down the disciplinary route.

Short-term absence should not be a difficult area for employers to deal with. Having clear reporting lines in place, recognising the patterns and dealing with them is the first step to managing the problems. Employers must recognise that employees will have off-days but curbing the numbers of days taken is the key to success.

Rewarding for attendance is controversial but has clearly worked for the likes of the Royal Mail, while other organisations including Rochdale Boroughwide Housing have found that implementing a nurse-led absence management call centre is the only way forward whilst for the vast majority disciplinary remains the only solution. Whatever the method, getting to the root causes of absence whether genuine or non-genuine is the most important step in controlling soaring and unacceptable levels of sickness absence.