We believe that promoting an active and healthy culture at work can have a positive impact on our people and our business by reducing absenteeism and the cost of ill health, and increasing employee engagement, retention and productivity.
Employee absence
Employee absence has remained steady during 2010/11, with an average of 8.1 sick days being taken per employee during the year (2009/10: 8.8). This is ahead of our target of nine days per employee per year. The percentage of employees on long-term sick leave also remained stable and was on target, averaging 1.41 per cent (2009/10: 1.46) against a 2010/11 target of 1.4 per cent.
Usage of our employee assistance programme, Care First, has also remained steady with around 2.9 per cent of all employees contacting the free and confidential 24 hour advice, information and counselling service in 2010/11 (2009/10: 2.7 per cent).
Key health issues
We have used data from the 2,786 new case referrals to BUPA in 2010/11 to identify the following key health issues for our staff:
- musculoskeletal problems (30 per cent of total referrals) including back, lower limb and upper limb pain (2009/10: 33 per cent)
- stress and psychological conditions (22 per cent of total referrals) including depression, stress and anxiety (2009/10: 21 per cent)
- heart and circulatory conditions (5 per cent of total referrals) (2009/10: 6.8 per cent).
In addition, 3,335 employees in safety critical roles received periodic health assessments. Seven per cent of this group were found to have diagnosed or possible diabetes. Possible cases were referred to employees’ GPs for further investigation.
Weight management continues to be a significant health issue for us. Of the 3,335 employees screened, 38 per cent were categorised as overweight , a further 23 per cent were categorised as obese and two per cent were found to be morbidly obese.
Getting back to work faster after a musculoskeletal injury
In March 2010 we concluded a 12 month project which aimed to help get staff back to work quicker following work-related musculoskeletal injuries by providing them with physiotherapy services through our occupational health provider, BUPA.
Of the 25 members of staff who took part in the pilot, eight had work-related injuries that required them to take sick leave from work (whilst the other 17 were able to stay on at work). The eight staff who received physiotherapy services returned to work after an average absence of 73 days. This compares favourably with an average sickness absence period of 167 days for staff suffering from both work and non-work related musculo-skeletal injuries in the two pilot scheme areas.
As a result of the success of this project, from 1st February 2012 we will provide physiotherapy services for all employees who sustain a musculoskeletal injury at work. We will report further on this area in our next report.
Health fairs make business sense
Following the success of our award-winning inaugural employee health fair in February 2010, we have held [three] further health fairs for staff during 2010/11. Our aim is to increase health awareness among our people by offering health screenings, activities, educational materials and practical demonstrations at these events. The fairs have been supported by relevant organisations including Care First and Cancer Research UK.
We have continued to improve our health fair guidance pack for managers during the year. We hope to hold more events in 2011/12, and are looking for cost effective ways to roll out the health fair programme across more of our sites.
Health campaigns
We have continued to deliver health campaigns throughout the year, including, for example, a skin cancer awareness campaign in the summer of 2010 in partnership with our charity of choice; Cancer Research UK.
We have also improved our health and well-being guidance materials, in particular on managing attendance and on managing for obesity and associated ill health. We have also increased the availability of this improved guidance through our new HR Online facility which is available to all employees on our company intranet.