Title: Sickness and absence management in the footsteps of the Royal Mail's ambitious program.
Date: 05 March 2009

Figures from ACAS and the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development show that the number of employees taking sick leave each year is increasing. This can only get worse in the coming months when the emotional toll of the recession starts to bite and people become despondent and stressed. Added to this, the protections for employees who are off sick are becoming more onerous.

Wise employers will be looking at ways to protect themselves, and realise that taking care of their employees’ health has the benefit of cutting absence rates and crucially saving money.

One successful absence management program is that of the Royal Mail Group. Four years ago the Royal Mail realised that sickness was becoming a real issue for them in terms of the financial cost, which was huge, and in the operational and management issues it raises. They reacted and engaged in a number of innovative health and wellbeing measures including installing gyms, on-site physical and mental health occupational therapy and programs to help employees to stop smoking and lose weight. The upshot of their efforts is that they have cut absence management by 25%, brought back to work over 3,500 employees who were off sick long-term and have saved themselves an estimated £227 million. By tackling the issue head on they have reduced costs and  protected their business. Such a program has two important by-products: engagement is improved because employees feel their employer cares and the employer has evidence of mitigation in the dreaded event of a stress claim.

There are other ways to tackle the issue too. With properly drafted contracts, policies and procedures, every company can protect itself against the risk of stress-related claims and prolonged absence. Other measures include in-house awareness campaigns about mental health and acceptable workplace behaviour. Any mitigation that can be evidenced by the employer is all worth the investment.

One thing that many employers fail to do is to review and update contracts and policies. This can prove costly if you are not aware that your employees’ contracts provide for full pay on sick leave which is not limited in time.

A judgment handed down recently by the European Court of Justice means that employees can accrue holiday pay even when they are off sick long-term. In this case, which was brought against H M Revenue and Customs, the employee had been off sick for over a year but was owed four weeks’ holiday pay, irrespective of whether he had exhausted contractual sick pay.

 

The contents of this article are for the purposes of general awareness only. They do not purport to constitute legal or professional advice. The law may have changed since this article was published.  Readers should not act on the basis of the information included and should take appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances

 

 

 

 

 

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