Almost six in 10 of UK employers report that absence management was a top-three priority for their organisation last year and three out of four expect this to continue in 2005/06, according to research issued by IRS Employment Review, published by LexisNexis Butterworths.
For the largest proportion of employers surveyed, tackling short-term absence is this yearís top priority.
IRS Employment Reviewís HR Prospects survey, now in its fourth year, examines the issues that employers face in recruiting and retaining staff. The survey includes responses from private and public sector 487 organisations, employing a total of 2,747,652 people ñ around one in 10 of all UK employees.
Key findings:
Almost two-thirds of employers expect absence levels to improve this year.
Half the public sector employers in the survey report a rise in stress-related absence last year, and a quarter have already used the HSEís new management standards on stress (see notes to editors).
Just over 60% of employers support the HSEís voluntary approach to managing work stress, although a quarter would support legal requirements on stress.
Two-thirds of employers plan to increase health promotion and wellness activities in 2005/06, and a similar proportion claims to use a business case when pushing for funding for workplace health investment.
Public sector employers in particular (83.3%) and large employers generally (72.7%) are the groups most likely to be planning investment in in health promotion in 2005/06, while private sector service companies are least likely to invest.
Barely a fifth (20%) of employers attempt to evaluate the impact of health and safety investment on employee and organisational performance.
A quarter of all employers surveyed support legal requirements and enforcement in health and safety, rising to 28.7% of public sector respondents. Conversely, one in eight (13%) of all employers do not believe that the HSE should seek in any way to ensure that employers manage work stress. This proportion rises to almost one in five (18.8%) among manufacturing and production employers.
Just over a quarter of all participants reported that overall absence levels had worsened last year ñ rising to 36% in the public sector.
An even higher proportion of organisations expect levels of bullying to remain the same. Only three in 10 (29.8%) of all employers predict an improving position, while 7.5% anticipate rises in bullying. Again, a higher proportion of public sector employers (45.6%). expect bullying to fall in 2005.
Training managers to handle absences of longer than four weeks, including rehabilitation, is a top-three priority in 2005 for 40.4% of employers, rising to 51% for the public sector.
Less than one in 10 (7.2%) employers report that they intend ñ as a priority - to examine their smoking policies, in spite of the planned legal restrictions.
Four in 10 (40%) employers expect general health and safety to be one of their organisationís top-three overall HR priorities over the next 12 months. However, barely a fifth (20.6%) report that cutting workplace accidents and near-misses will be one of their top-three absence management priorities in 2005/06.
Only 12.4% of survey respondents said that absence related to stress improved in 2004, compared with the 37.4% reporting a cut in absence overall. Half of all public sector employers reported that stress-related absence was worse in 2004. Larger employers face particular stress challenges: 55.5% report an increase in stress absence last year.
IRS Employment Review managing editor, Mark Crail said:
ìAbsence management seems to trigger a quixotic response from UK employers; they know attendance is a major problem for their organisations yet there appears to be no sense of urgency to find viable solutions. Apart from the handful of organisations whose efforts have hit the headlines recently, less than one in 10 employers rank the introduction of attendance incentives as a top-three priority in 2005.
ìThirty years after the birth of the HSE, the debate continues as to how best to secure better health and safety performance. Despite the evidence stacking up for a direct link between improving employeesí health and productivity, practice on the ground suggests that many employers have yet to be convinced of the value of investing in workplace health.î
Absence makes the challenge grow stronger
Almost six in 10 of UK employers report that absence management was a top-three priority for their organisation last year and three out of four expect this to continue in 2005/06
