Absence: Incidence v Impact

The size and resources of Human Resources teams are one of the major dividing lines in the UK employment world.

Larger employers typically encounter the entire range of HR responsibilities and challenges on a daily or hourly basis.  It follows that they have the need and the financial resources to populate their HR & Payroll teams with topic experts on every facet of the Human Resources role.

Whereas small and medium sized (SME) businesses typically employ fewer than 250 employees.  These far smaller workforces may lead to only infrequent encounters with some otherwise common aspects of the HR job role.

Absence & SMEs

And this dynamic is most certainly reflected in workforce wellbeing and absence management. 

For the incidence rate of lengthy workforce absence is typically far lower for an SME than a larger organisation.  But whilst long-term absence is less frequent, the impact of any one absent employee is often disproportionately painful for the smaller organisation.

A larger employer will typically be able to ensure cover for the absent employee. This might be from within his or her specialised team, by spreading the work across other divisions, or by recruiting locum replacements as needed.  These luxuries are often not available to smaller employers which are required to work to a leaner budgetary and staffing agenda.

Support varies

The typical SME also faces another issue with potential long-term absence.

A large employer will usually have a robust and interlinked wellbeing package in place.  This lowers the risk of long-term sickness absence occurring, and provides rapid treatment, support and occupational health analysis when an absence does occur.  

Smaller employers often have fewer, or no, such additional resources given more limited time and finances.  Such organisations often find it difficult to source these expert services quickly and don’t know where to turn to for impartial advice and support.

Keep Britain Working

Happily, this gulf between large and smaller employers has now been recognised by the team behind the Keep Britain Working (KBW) report and movement.

KBW are developing a draft model of support at work to be known as Workplace Health Provision (WHP).  The report defines WHP as;

“It’s central position is that employees and line managers should be able to turn to a trusted, impartial coordinator when a work and health issue needs more than a straightforward managerial response.  

Their role is to translate between them, coordinate and help monitor the stay in work or return to work plan and to help point employees to appropriate support.  They do not replace clinical judgement, human resources or line management, but complement them when needed.”

Workplace Health Provision will obviously need to bring together various strands.  These will include line managers, human resources teams, GP reports, EAP support, healthcare and (importantly) occupational health services.  It will take time to build this, but the Keep Britain Working team are mindful of that capacity and cost challenge for those smaller employers.

Workplace Health Provision for SMEs

The KBW report recognises that this will be challenging for many smaller employers but is actively considering the idea of “pooled” purchasing of Workplace Health Provision.  This might be through geographical location (particularly if the new Prime Minister’s devolution plans are accelerated in England) or via sector bodies and trade associations.

Work towards this goal is already taking place in various regions.  Yet there remain many challenges to consider.  This is particularly the case if insured models are used, given that there will be concerns about adverse selection of risks and fair pricing.

What would help this initiative evolve and embed would be government support.  Tax breaks are not yet on the table, but it would be wise for the new Chancellor to actively consider this area given that success in tackling sickness absence would also lower costs to the welfare state in the long run.  

What now?

In the meantime, both large and small employers need to maximise the usage and value of their existing wellbeing, employee benefits and occupational health service providers. 

For our regular updates on how to achieve this, please follow our news post or join us at our quarterly employment webinars.