At Direct Health Solutions, we have assisted hundreds of organisations in Australia and New Zealand to implement best practice, evidence based absence programs, that have, on average reduced absenteeism levels by 25%.
An absence management strategy is a complex interaction of process, reporting systems, management action and employee behaviour, not to mention workplace culture and engagement. Through centralisation of absence recording, we are able to do a number of essential activities to help business get control of absenteeism and develop positive workplace cultures:
- Consistent reporting of absence
- Accurate recording of absence data in real-time
- Report on the underlying reasons for absence in far greater detail that basic systems can
- Interrogate and develop analytics of absence data to develop effective workplace health programs, management development programs, and engagement activities
- Provide managers with a workflow to manage absenteeism that is in line with best practice policies and procedures, and promotes their engagement in the process.
The cornerstone of a best practice program, is AbsenceAssist. AbsenceAssist includes:
24×7 absence recording & notification
DHS provides each client with a dedicated system to record and notify unplanned absences 24/7/365. Here we record the detail of every absence in a fair, consistent, and accurate manner before issuing timely notifications to relevant stakeholders. This includes providing line managers with detailed absence information and guidance on the most appropriate steps to assist an employee back to work.
- 24×7 absence recording
- Complete and accurate capture of absence details
- Instant notifications to management via email/SMS
- Fair and consistent approach for all employees
- Guidance from Day 1 on managing the absence
- Customised call scripting for each customer
- Reduced administration for managers and HR
- Payroll integration eliminates under-reporting and duplicated processes
Medical advice & support
All employees can receive confidential health advice for medical absences by one of our registered nurses. The nursing role is to provide the employee with primary care advice on how to return them back to good health and agree a target return to work date based upon the employee’s symptoms. In addition, employees will be able to call our nursing team for free medical advice at any time of the day, and a follow up call will be offered so that ongoing support can be provided.
- Registered nurses provide confidential health advice from Day 1
- Accurate recording of absence reasons
- Referrals to GP’s, EAP’s, HR and OH&S
- OH risks flagged with HR
- Ongoing support from our nursing team for medical absences
Real-time online absence reporting solution
All of your absence information is stored in AttendPro™, our online web-based real-time reporting system. Our system provides a dashboard indicating absence hotspots, reasons and trends, as well as detailed individual absence reports to assist with objective and positive management of unplanned leave.
- Real-time monitoring of absences across all business units and teams
- Dashboards for absence rates, reasons, RTW management compliance, and much more
- Full benchmarking scorecards for all business units
- Early identification and notification of hotspot absences
- Push reporting suite
- Monthly reporting analysis from our account management team
RTW interview monitoring
Effective RTW interview management is key to helping organisations engage with their staff, and reduce absence. DHS provides each manager with a system to complete RTW interviews in a timely manner. The system allows HR to track the completion of all RTW interviews and produce reports on manager compliance throughout the organisation. This helps to identify areas of non-compliance.
- RTW interviews sent to managers following each and every absence
- Reminders to managers for overdue RTW interviews
- Line manager and business unit compliance tracking
- Reporting on quality of RTW interview outcomes
For companies with trigger management enabled, the system provides managers with alerts and prompts for more formal attendance support when employees reach pre-defined trigger points, such as days lost or frequency of absence.
Flexible trigger management
Our Trigger Management Module maps onto an organisation’s policies, procedures and specific absence needs. Each time an absence is reported, if an alert is triggered managers will receive a real-time notification email and/or sms. These alerts can be fully customised with attachments, including manager guides and instructions to ensure the recipient is aware of what steps need to occur in the process.
- Absence policy alerts triggered in real-time
- Automatic pattern alerts
- Attachments and guidelines customised in emails to managers
- Online filing system
- Alerts for referrals to occupational health
- Online e-learning and education tools for managers
Implementation of trigger management is a key step in developing a best practice absence management framework. Our team will guide you through the process.
Contact us today to see how we can help your business.
