Ongoing economic challenges are putting stress on employers’ ability to manage employee absenteeism and return-to-work programs. This finding was reported in Watson Wyatt’s latest Staying at Work survey done with the Washington Business Group on Health and released this past spring. Political and economic uncertainty, worker layoffs, hiring freezes, an unprecedented increase in behavioural health claims and stress-related disorders are making it difficult to maintain productivity levels.
When staff leave, they often aren’t replaced and those left are faced with double shifts and extra work-loads. The pace of change is so fast that when someone wants to come back to work after a disability, it’s often not easy to take them back.
The survey questioned 80 employers in the U.S. with 1.5 million full-time employees who reported that to better manage employee disability and absenteeism, many employers are turning towards a greater use of the Internet and Web-based tools such as data reporting systems; real-time access to absence occurrences; linkage among medical, case management, benefits and health management services; and physician-friendly patient assessment tools and information.
But that is not necessarily the case in Canada today. The Web is sexy and exciting, but it is also expensive. People are taking baby steps towards it.
Still, employers are looking for ways to deal with employee absenteeism. Many employers are finding creative, old-fashioned ways to improve the workplace to prevent problems from happening in the first place. For instance, setting up cross-jobs where employees move around can help, particularly in preventing injuries from people doing repetitive movements. As well, more employers are going to third parties (outside disability management specialists) to manage their long- and short-term disability programs. They used to do it themselves, but are now realizing that they don’t necessarily manage disability well.
Unlike disability management, which typically requires medical training and may be better left to experts, employers could do more to manage absenteeism. More companies are recognizing the high cost of absenteeism and see that the problem is growing. Yet, most companies don’t have a good handle on tracking employee attendance. They don’t necessarily need the Internet to do it either. Tracking could be done on an internal HRIS (Human Resources Information System). There are a few new software packages on the market and some are available online as ASPs (application service providers), so they aren’t expensive to use.
For example, an online absence management system could allow a supervisor to check attendance, input when a person is away, when they return and the reason for the absence. An employee could also put a vacation request directly into the system and the system could generate reports, which would allow attendance tracking. It could also tell you that a certain employee is away every Monday. If a company policy says a person needs a medical note when they are away for three days, then a three-day absence would be flagged. Or, if after an employee is away for five days, requiring a third-party disability consultant to be contacted, that could be flagged as well.
Internet technology can also help promote health and wellness to employees, a strategy that works well when combined with employee self-service sites that offer online benefits enrollment. However, although a lot of companies have looked at the idea of providing health information online for employees, not many have put the necessary dollars behind it. Health promotion is viewed as a long-term benefit which might prevent people from taking time off work or going on disability. But, to an employer looking at 10 per cent increases in long-term disability -- and no end in sight -- that’s a far bigger issue. Perhaps it would be more valuable for employers to do health-risk assessments and target people who are at risk.
While low-tech options can offer many advantages, technology is seen as the way of the future. The Watson Wyatt survey suggests that about one-third of respondents anticipate moving away from paper-based absence reporting to real-time management through Internet-based technologies within the next two years. According to the president of the Washington Business Group on Health, Helen Darling, quoted in a press release about the Staying at Work survey, Web-based approaches should eventually enable providers of medical, case management, benefits and health management services to link their services efficiently so that employees can be restored to good health and return to work. That’s the real promise of integrated absence and disability management.
