Sickness absence costs UK businesses an estimated £29 billion each year and the average number of days lost per year is 6.3 days. The most common top five causes for long-term absences are stress, acute medical conditions, mental ill health, musculoskeletal injuries and back pain.
Employers that invest in workplace health and wellbeing can expect to see improvements in productivity and performance. Additionally, benefits could include staff retention, improved employee engagement, cost control and a reduction in absenteeism.
Implement an employee wellbeing programme
A wellbeing programme can help to lower absenteeism and demonstrate sustainable business practices. Proactively preventing absenteeism can be done through educating employees with management training days, bespoke monthly health campaigns, wellbeing days and wellbeing workshops. Offering lifestyle assessment days can enable employees to identify any health issues they have and then be able to tackle them head on. Staff education on health and wellbeing will give your employees the best tools to make healthy behavioural changes which can have an impact on absenteeism.
Keep employees motivated and engaged
Offering staff incentives can help to increase employee engagement and demonstrate staff appreciation. Selecting incentives that are also health based can help reduce absenteeism such as discounted gym memberships, activity trackers for employee challenges, healthy snack boxes, healthy vending machines, walkfit classes or other group workouts.
Reduce work-related stress
Stress can cause unplanned office absences; therefore, employers should take a proactive approach towards wellbeing. Investigating what areas of stress employees are suffering from could help determine how Human Resources can aid in reducing and addressing it. An employee could be stressed because of heavy workloads, uncomfortable work conditions, difficulties with colleagues or feeling overwhelmed. Offering employees office massages can help relieve tension and stress, providing staff with a short break.
Provide employee support
Employees can be affected by their personal life and there may be a genuine reason why workers are failing to show up. Workplaces should create an environment where employees feel comfortable talking to line managers or HR departments about stress in the workplace in order to provide support.
Offer flexible working
Flexible working can be beneficial to both the employer and the employee. Employees who have a family or obligations to meet are less likely to be absent from work on a regular basis if flexible working is offered. Flexible working can include working from home, shorter hours and flexitime. Implementing this within your organisation demonstrates the you acknowledge the personal lives of your company and trust them to work their hours.
Incorpore offers a discounted gym network that not only benefits the employee but also human resources and rewards teams by giving them the opportunity to engage more with their staff and build better relationships. Offering discounted gym memberships and wellbeing services can boost productivity and help reduce staff absenteeism as regular exercise reduces proneness to illnesses. Thus, saving your business money in reduced productivity and missed opportunities. Incorpore offer two gym solution products: GymFlex and My Gym Discounts.
Along with a discounted gym network, Incorpore also offer discounts on health, sport and fitness products through My Active Discounts. Our newest product which is coming soon is Your Wellness Hub, a dedicated site offering discounted goods and services to support your wellbeing strategy. Your Wellness Hub offers flexible, bespoke & tailorable wellbeing solutions to support healthy behavioural changes within your workplace including health calendars, wellbeing workshops, health assessments, team events and health products such as sit and stand desks.