- - Sickness absence reduced from 7.5 to 4 days per full time employee per year
- - Expected £152,000 annual saving
- - Real-time management information
- - Bespoke training for managers at the council to help them identify and resolve absence issues
South Northamptonshire Council has been proactive in its approach to the cut backs by developing different ways of working to improve efficiency ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). Reducing absenteeism has played its own part in the Council’s strategy to improve efficiency.
The Council partnered with FirstCare to provide a Day 1 Absence Management service where absence is recorded and reported as soon as an employee is absent from work. This process offers real-time management information enabling managers to understand how and where absence is affecting the organisation. It also allows the Council to make comparisons between different departments and sites in order to identify any problem areas, and because it is ‘real time’ managers can act immediately on any cases which require employer support.
Gina Thomas, South Northamptonshire Council’s Human Resources Manager, says: “We recognise the impact high levels of absenteeism can have on the bottom line. By investing time up front to select an effective absence management system and by working in partnership with FirstCare to train managers, we have reduced absenteeism from an average of 7.5 days to a projected 4 days. This has had a direct saving on finances within the council.”
Alongside the introduction of the Day 1 Absence Management service, South Northamptonshire Council
also worked with FirstCare to implement a number of processes to complement the system in an effort to further reduce absence.
At the forefront of this was a focus on line managers and ensuring they have the right knowledge and skills to monitor absence accurately. The council has been working with and training managers in order to help them identify and resolve absence issues promptly with a specific focus on carrying out effective return-to-work interviews.
By having access to real-time absence data and an accurate record of an individual’s absence history, managers and the council are now able to work with absent employees to ensure they take the appropriate steps to return to full health quickly and regain productivity sooner.
Since the introduction of the FirstCare Day 1 Absence Management system the council has seen a significant reduction in employee absence, from an average of 7.5 days per incident to 4 days. This decrease equates to a predicted nonproductive saving of £152,000 annually. As well as the nonproductive savings there have been significant real savings made as well. For example, in the Waste Services team, it costs an average of £9.20 per hours to employ a temporary refuse and recycling collector or street cleaner to cover an absent employee. By reducing the period of absence taken the council has achieved an annual saving of almost £15,000 in this one area alone.
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