Keep your business working healthily
Work with Well Working Matters and experience for yourself the difference it makes when there is a business-wide focus on best-practice in all aspects of the Return-to-Work process.
Productivity reduces if employees are regularly calling in sick
It can delay projects and mean there is no consistency within teams, this in turn leads to low productivity levels. Even those who rarely have sick days can suffer from low motivation if their colleagues are often absent.
We all know that the common cold, flu and stomach bugs are behind many employee absences, but there are a number of other things that make workers call in sick on a regular basis. These are highlighted in The CIPD’s Annual Absence Management Survey.
Recent years has seen something of a shift, while minor illnesses are still the most common cause of short-term illness (which the CIPD defines as less than 20 days), the number of people absent due to stress and mental health issues has risen in the past 12 months.
Facilitating Return-to-Work for employers and their employees, our services enhance the workplace. We work with businesses, organisations and individuals, supporting the Return-to-Work journey, with strategies, training and knowledge.
WHY BEING WELL AT WORK MATTERS
Absenteeism
The causes and what is costs organisations.
Absenteeism can be stressful for all parties involved.
An employee could be out of the workplace for a variety of reasons and for varying lengths of time. There could be a pattern of occurrences, or a one-off situation resulting from an accident, personal trauma, or following an operation, for example.
For whatever the reason or length of time, their absence is felt by many people within the organisation. It impacts their workload, their colleagues, teams, and management, so it would be prudent to ensure the individual receives all the support required to facilitate their return to work, as timely and appropriately as possible.
Having an accurate understanding of the reasons for the absence, and with the skills, knowledge, processes, and policies in place to facilitate all aspects of the RTW process, an organisation will be equipped to create an effective RTW Plan and return the employee to work as quickly as possible.
Learn more about our Absence Management Assessments, Return to Work Training Opportunities and Return to Work Action Planning Training.
Presenteeism
It has been known for a long time just how problematic presenteeism can be.
When employees come to work despite being ill or tired and are not functioning at their best, this can be costly and businesses lose millions through lost productivity and by spreading illness. When staff show up, regardless of health, it can create a pattern of presenteeism that soon spreads throughout the workplace, becoming an ingrained culture that is tricky to turn around.
Many people come to work when they’re unwell because of subconscious biases – a deadline, a sense of obligation to a boss or colleagues, staff shortages, a culture of expectation, or the negative connotations of being absent.
Whatever their motivation, the impacts of their actions is not always positive; for themselves as well as for the business. The initial stage of self-management looks like presenteeism, but the next stage is more dangerous – leading to disengagement, burnout or highly trained staff leaving the profession completely.
Employers have an essential role to play in discouraging presenteeism for frontline workers. Finding ways to manage it not only saves money but also contributes to employee health, wellbeing and engagement and productivity at work.
Leaveism
The effects of leaveism in business.
When it comes to illness at work, employers have become more familiar with the terms absenteeism and presenteeism. But now there is a third term, leaveism.
The term was originally coined in 2013, to describe the phenomena of employees using flexitime, annual leave, rest days and other leave entitlement schemes to have time off, when they are in fact too unwell to go to work. Subsequently this was extended to include occasions whereby employees took work home and/or on holiday that they could not complete in paid working hours.
Following research by the CIPD and Simply Health, with over 1,000 HR professionals representing 4.6m employees in the UK, reported that 87% considered that technology affected people’s ability to switch off out of work hours, taking phone calls and answering emails were cited by way of example. Further, that 69% had observed leaveism over the previous 12 months. [link to the report].
Don’t ignore the signs
It is easy to ignore the signs of leaveism, as in the short-term, businesses are saving money when staff are undertaking work without compensation. But the needs of the employee are a serious consideration, as the impacts of employee burnout, mental health and ultimate staff retention can be an expensive cost to bear.
DELIVERING VALUE AND BENEFIT
WE SUPPORT EMPLOYEES AND EMPLOYERS IN THEIR RETURN TO WORK PROCEEDINGS AFTER ABSENCE
