Absence Management Improvements

The Challenge

The organisation had recently taken on an outsourced contract to deliver NHS telephone advice services with c300 staff transferring under TUPE regulations from their previous employer, an NHS Trust. The services operated in a call centre working environment staffed on a 24/7 shift basis.

Immediately following the transfer, sickness absence rates increased. There was confusion in who was managing the absence, which policies should be applied, and, with employee systems changes, gaps in the recording of absence.

Project Delivered

My initial priority was to implement a more accurate and consistent process for recording absence, working with Team Managers, Shift Managers and the Rostering team to achieve this.

I work extensively with an allocated Team Manager to case manage all long term and repeated short term absence cases, following the existing NHS policy for all transferred employees.

I developed and delivered absence management toolkit and training for line managers. Once they had attended training, line managers then gradually picked up sickness cases from their team, taking ongoing responsibility with support from the general HR team.

Outcome

My key achievements on this project were:

• Implementing health and wellbeing initiatives including flu vaccines, OH service, stop smoking service, counselling service

• Carrying out DSE assessments and giving appropriate associated advice

• Meeting all allocated budget requirements

• A reduction of 5.7% in absence rates in 5 months