Absence within the workplace continues to be costly to organisations and the economy. Managing sickness absence is always a key topic of conversation in the HR field, yet similar themes recur year on year.

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In these discussions, stress and emotional health is always a key area, and continues to be on the increase. According to a recent blog published by the CIPD and Simply Health, wellbeing is improving yet stress is not. It finds that organisations are still being reactive when trying to manage stress. This results in stress related absence often becoming a long-term problem.

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However, while I find that over the years we have become much more at ease talking about our physical ailments and how we can support those, there remains a degree of stigma and difficulty when it comes to talking about our emotional health.

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To help improve this, some years ago we took the counter-intuitive step to remove the rules and bureaucracy around managing absence. We co-designed and adopted a proactive management process, removing boundaries, and time limits that can unintentionally hinder the management of absences and health. We also dropped trigger points and decided to focus on supporting employees based on their individual needs and circumstances. Our focus is on who needs help, and when do they need it?

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So a key question for HR professionals to ask is: Does your process enable you to support your people individually?

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Well, we took these steps over 6 years ago and the results speak for themselves. Having a proactive process has enabled us to:

• Prevent ill health from deteriorating in some cases;
• Speed up the process of recovery, especially instances of emotional ill-health;
• Reduce and even prevent absences occurring through proactive support and rehabilitation which includes reduced hours, reduced or amended duties, flexible working and providing support as required.
• Enable staff to seek support early and when needed, without lengthy waiting time for support, when often can be too late.
• Maintain an attendance rate of 98% or more consistently for over 5 years.

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Sounds easy?

Well it is not. For this to be successful requires firstly that the health and wellbeing of your people is a key priority for the organisation.

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Secondly it is critical that this is also embedded into your culture. It takes time, drive, and a passion to create an environment where people’s health and wellbeing comes first, yet individuals take ownership in managing their own health and wellbeing too.

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We know that work is good for us. Dame Carol Black’s report, “working for a healthier tomorrow”, was instrumental in supporting this theory, whereby at the heart of the vision was looking at preventing illness and promotion of health and wellbeing.

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Although being at work is healthy, we must be alert to the balance of managing health and creating an atmosphere of Presenteeism. It is important that we are mindful of an individual’ needs, what supports health and wellbeing, versus the requirement, on occasion time off is exactly what is needed.

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If your people feel cared about and are supported, when needed, not when a policy dictates, this will go a long way to having a healthier workforce!