Council bosses told to slash annual 244,000 sick days a year
MANAGERS are being told to clamp down on council employees pulling "sickies".
They are being asked to keep in touch with absent workers through formal interviews as part of a plan to crackdown on sickness rates at Staffordshire County Council.
Latest figures show the authority's 28,438 workers took 244,515 days off work at an average of 8.6 days per person over the last 12 months.
Now the authority's sickness absence management policy advisory group (PAG) wants to make managers more accountable in dealing with staff going off sick.
It noted inconsistences in the ways different managers handled the issue, and called for increased training as part of a mandatory manager's induction process.
At yesterday's corporate review committee Councillor Liz Staples said: "Managers have to manage, whether it's someone sneaking a half-day off, or someone on long-term sick. The correct procedures need to be put in place, and managers should know that it's part of their job.
"They need to be reactive as well as proactive in dealing with sickness absence."
Managers' training would cover return-to-work discussions and the need for absence warnings to be issued consistently at appropriate times.
Councillor Mark Winnington, cabinet member for assets, performance and organisation, agreed managers would have to play their part in tackling sickness absence.
He said: "Management is vital to reducing sick days. We shouldn't have to employ other people to do sickness management."
Another recommendation is to offer free physiotherapy to council workers off work with problems like bad backs.
Muscular-skeletal disorders accounted for more than 60,000 sick days in the last year, largely in the authority's social care and health department.
The group proposes to employ a team of private physiotherapists, who would charge £220 per treatment, in a 12-month trial.
The proposal will now go to the authority's innovation and efficiency board, before cabinet has the final say.
Committee chairman Alan White stressed 77 per cent of the council's workers are off for less than five days a year.
He said: "While it should improve, the situation is not as bad as you might think. There is a tendency to think that people in the public sector take more sickness time than those in the private sector, but it is not nearly as bad as you might think it is at the county council.
"We need to mention all the staff who come in, come what may. This is not a witch-hunt. We are grateful to all the staff who turn up, day in, day out."
2 Comments
by Paul Goddard, Southampton
Wednesday, April 14 2010, 2:02PM
“Nothing wrong with holding managers accountable but this is not new and one thing is for sure ¿ if you keep doing the same thing whilst hoping for different results, don¿t be surprised if it doesn¿t work!
The fact is that we are mostly all intensive computer users who work sitting down for long periods. Statistics now show that the resulting musculo-skeletal disorders or MSDs are now the most common cause of absence from work ¿ that¿s over 55%
Staffordshire County Council could fix this problem for 20% of the costs of absence creating a 5:1 cost savings ratio within 2 years. The consequential improvements in employee health comfort and productivity add considerable cost efficiencies that ought to be very attractive to any local authority considering the expected future!
Almost every day I talk to RSI sufferers or the Occupational Therapists who are supporting them and its amazing how varied and how complex these musculo-skeletal problems can be.
The secret is the concept of prevention. Mostly people can¿t be bothered and will only start complaining after it¿s too late ¿ but the reality is they could prevent it if they were willing to participate in avoiding the problem in the first place.
Most of us use a computer both at work and home, and worse still the computer is increasingly more likely to be a laptop and the number of hours of usage longer and longer. Effectively we are making trouble in the future as the stresses and strains on our tendons eventually cause serious damage. You could compare it to smoking or a bad diet. The results are sure that the more intensive the computer usage the more likely you are to have a tendon problem and tendons are slow to heal and become more vulnerable to damage with wear and age.
Many employers are beginning to recognise the disconnect between their DSE assessment systems and the number of people off sick with ailments that relate to the working environment and the worker behaviour.
As the problem begins to impact organisational performance so the level of interest in doing something about it rises and hopefully this will drive better understanding. Employers and employees need a means of identifying the risks and establishing a preventative strategy that shows how performance and productivity can be improved as well as enabling a healthier working environment.
There are tools that can help and my hope is that employers will take more of a lead as it is clear that the more we use computers and the older we get, the more MSDs will become a hugely damaging cost to society as a whole.”
by gb, Telford
Tuesday, April 13 2010, 2:00PM
“Simple , just dont pay them like most workers, just let them claim stat sick pay after 3 days .. job sorted”