Reducing staff absence costs

Sickness absence cost UK business 11.6 billion in 2003, with employers fearing that up to 15% of absence was not genuine*. Health and wellbeing solutions provider, FirstAssist, believes that the key to tackling this huge burden on the UK economy is to take a pro-active stance to employee health and wellbeing. As a result FirstAssist is promoting a new range of Positive Health solutions designed to go to the heart of an organisation and improve productivity and performance.

FirstAssist Positive Health helps identify the reasons for sickness absence in the first place so that absence levels can be reduced and costs for temporary personnel and overtime can be limited. They also monitor and manage on-going employee absence and create policies and strategies that will reduce its impact in the long-term for a healthier, happier and more productive business.

Tim Ablett, Chief Executive of FirstAssist comments, With staff absence costing on average 475 per employee*, FirstAssist Positive Health Solutions are invaluable in helping businesses maintain a healthy and productive workforce. Crucially this means we not only provide a powerful insight into the causes of employee absence, but work with an organisation to create a culture of positive health for the long-term, for the employees and the business.

FirstAssist has identified three key aspects to positive health promotion and aims to help companies address each aspect with their employees in order to reduce levels of sickness absence:

Primary Health such as smoking, drinking and lack of exercise.

Staying Healthy at Work aims to give employers the tools to ensure an employee’s time at work has a healthy foundation.

Managing Health provides a network of support and resources to help staff get back to work when they fall ill or have an accident.

The range of services, resources and experts encompassed within FirstAssist Positive Health Solutions supports this model to provide the support that exactly fits the needs of each individual organisation.

Absence management and recording, as well as rehabilitation, physiotherapy and occupational therapists and psychologists are all included within FirstAssist Positive Health, helping people get back to work quicker from illness and injury. Access is also provided to FirstAssist’s Private Medical Insurance and Employee Assistance Programme and there is added support through pre-employment screening services and a dedicated Occupational Health advice line.

In addition, FirstAssist has an extensive network of occupational health professionals for referrals, as well as offering employee training programmes and health screening and health promotion programmes for ongoing management of staff health and wellbeing.

Whether it is a one-off service or an integrated solution across all areas of an organisation, FirstAssist’s Positive Health solutions address employee wellbeing proactively and reduce staff absence levels long-term.

Concludes Tim Ablett, We have created a dedicated Absence Management and Recording Helpline, which allows employees and line managers to report absence. By virtue of day one reporting, we can actively identify employees who benefit from active case management, early intervention and rehabilitation, and start the dialogue at the earliest opportunity. This enables timely intervention before absence becomes prolonged and the employee’s return-to-work is managed at the earliest appropriate point in time. The data collected is also used to understand the reason for absence and create a tailored solution for each business.

The key to our service is to facilitate an early return to work, reduce absence and its impact on business profits through proactive care and support.

The day one absence recording service has been developed in partnership with FirstHealth Solutions and combines FirstAssist’s employee risk management expertise and call centre capabilities with FirstHealth Solutions’ leading edge COLLATE software system**.




*These are the latest figures from a survey of over 500 firms by the CBI and AXA published this week. Firms are paying 11.6 billion in 2003 to cover the cost of absenteeism The total number of working days lost to absence has increased for the first time since 1998, caused by an eight per cent rise in service sector absence. Total days lost rose from 166 million in 2002 to 176 million in 2003. That is 7.2 days per employee, an increase of six per cent or almost half a day.

**Exclusively marketed by the FirstAssist Group, COLLATE is the most advanced Sickness Absence Management tool for measuring, managing, and minimising absence and ill-health risks. COLLATE enables best-practice processes and interventions to be delivered in real-time, bringing together line managers, human resource, occupational health, payroll departments, medical insurers and health & safety so that the right person gets the right information at the right time.