Absenteeism - getting a grip! - Melissa Ritchie As we move into autumn and the nights draw in the coughs and colds start up as well as the days when employees just don’t want to go to work!  In this article we give you some advice to keep on top of the problem of short term absences and manage absenteeism assertively but fairly.  The national average number of days taken off sick by full time employees is 6 (nine in the public sector).  It is actually a very real cost to your business to have those that keep your business ticking away from work.  Do you know how many days productive work you lose to absence?  Firstly it is vital that you keep a record of absences and that you know what they were for (or what you were told they were for).  Information is power and you will need to present evidence of the absenteeism record.  If you are a larger organisation having ‘trigger points’ will help you manage your employees fairly and equally, for example one trigger point may be 5 or more separate absences in 6 months (a small series of trigger points will be needed to pick up most patterns). Look for patterns such as Monday and Friday absences. Ask the employee to attend a meeting to discuss the record of absences and agree a target of reduction over the coming couple of months.  Whenever they do take a day off sick go through a ‘return to work’ interview which captures a bit more information about the reason for it and shows that you are noting them.  Carry out review meetings with those that you’ve set targets with, you need to give positive feedback as well as negative!  If the problem continues without any medical cause that you can identify then you need to inform the employee that the disciplinary procedure may be used.  Laying out your process in a ‘sickness policy’ makes it clear to all how you will manage the situation and the possible implications.  As with all these situations you need to progress fairly through the process and ensure that you are not at risk of being considered to be targeting one employee especially if there is an illness which may be covered by the Disability Discrimination Act.  If you require any more assistance in managing sickness in your business please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

A TV star's point of view - John Bartlett It’s all too easy to talk the doom and gloom of health and safety but in fact the UK has a very good safety record. I have recently been putting my point of view across to a TV production company who are making a Cutting Edge program on health and safety for Channel 4 scheduled for the autumn. Not sure yet if I will be appearing but it was interesting and I thought I would share some of my thoughts on health and safety: Yes it is sad that approximately 245 people are killed every year at work but lets get that into some kind of perspective. Associated with those deaths how many companies were prosecuted by the enforcing authorities? On closer inspection of the individual circumstances how many of these people actually ignored the company rules and took for whatever reason the short cut that went tragically wrong. It’s not realistic to say that we must get this figure down to zero. Why aren’t the 1000 people killed on the roads while at work included in the national figures? Note: If you drive more than 25,000 miles a year you stand a 1 in 250 chance of being killed on the roads. There are also 3,000 people for the next ten years that will die of an asbestos related disease. Individuals must take accountability for their actions. This is actually in the HSAWA 74 but very employees are aware of it. As a profession we should start to concentrate on accidents in the home. 4,000 people a year are killed and a huge number injured. Who picks up the tab if one of your workers falls from a ladder painting their house and is off for three weeks? Risk assessments are a legal requirement but in my view the process doesn’t work very well if at all in most business. Who writes them? Normally someone in the office on a computer and the person who is involved in carrying out ‘the risk’ never gets to see the ‘bits of paper’ A child can tell me the issues of working from a ladder. What must surely be more important is ‘how do we do it safely’! Why is it that if you are a business with less than 5 employees you do not have to formally record the risk assessments you have carried out. How on earth would you ever demonstrate that you have done it should the need arise? I hope the programme makers will interview the journalists from the Daily Mail and ask what their h&s qualifications are and where they get their information from to write the absolute outrageous articles that spread the ‘conkers bonkers’ stories and myths. Working in a business as a safety professional is like pushing a pea up Mount Everest with your nose. No board of directors is sitting around the table today wondering what they can introduce that will cause death and destruction. However, the decisions taken at this point have, and I am sure will continue, to lead to people being put under pressure which will lead to the short cut which will of course lead to something going badly wrong. The rules aren’t difficult, its people interruption and perception of them. Health and safety is often used as an excuse not to do something for all the wrong reasons.  I do wonder if I am becoming Victor Meldrew! Be safe   JB