Successes

Absence Reporting Software

The company is an international courier delivery services company, and has been delivering to its customers for more than 70 years. The organisation has fully owned operations in 61 countries, and employs over 4,000 employees with customer service central to the organisation’s ethos.

The company operates on a schedule and depends on its workforce to maintain pace. Therefore, attendance management is a very high priority for the transportation industry. In 2010, the company sought the expertise of Direct Health Solutions (DHS) to address its higher than desirable levels of absenteeism.

“We wanted an absence management program that we could manage in-house. DHS were able to offer a platform to help us monitor absence more efficiently, and flag cases that required further investigation and support.” (GM Human Resources)

The Solution

Combating staff absenteeism was identified as a key opportunity to contain costs. HR and the Executive wanted to implement a robust, centralised reporting process. This would need to drive consistency in conducting return to work interviews, and escalation of cases in real-time when certain absence levels were reached.

The existing company systems provided limited data that could not be utilised by frontline management to tackle absence and manage it effectively. As a result, the client required a smart absence management program for tracking and managing absences on a widespread scale. Using the DHS AbsenceTrack technology platform, and our proprietary organisational methods, the solution was designed to include the following:

• A more complete picture of the company’s absenteeism performance
• More sustained performance for the business as a whole
• A central portal for absence data storage
• Alerts to managers when return to work interviews are required, or absence patterns emerge
• Accurate reporting of the company’s attendance in real-time
• Immediate insights into absence patterns and hotspots
• A consistent methodology for reporting and recording absences across the board
• Easy integration with the company’s existing payroll and rostering systems

Taking a collaborative and consultative approach to implementation was key for the business. A project management team was created to implement the program across a six-week timeframe. One of the first tasks of implementation was to develop a six-month set of objectives to ensure the program successfully integrated into the organisation’s culture. A further requirement was to inform all staff about the changes to policy and procedures, and to engage managers in a bespoke absence management learning and development program (which included “how to use” the DHS AbsenceTrack technology).

Results – A 28% Absence Reduction in Year 1

The client realised many successes following implementation of the program. Absence became a high priority for managers, and having real-time escalations meant managers could address absences more efficiently and confidently.  Targets for compliance with conducting timely return to work interviews and absence review meetings were met. This resulted in a 28.5% reduction in absence across the workforce in the first year.

Additional achievements included understanding employee needs better, a more comprehensive view of the health of the workforce, greater levels of management accountability and ownership, improved customer service and operations, and much more.