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If adult life is about the avoidance of awkward moments, then managing sickness absence is one area where many of us are bound to fail. Few of us can savour return to work interviews, or indeed counselling interviews, if matters get more serious. But dealing with discomfort was critical when we set out to cut our absence rate from 16.3 days. Left to our own devices, many of us will either bottle or fudge return to work interviews. Illness is a deeply personal matter. Many staff are not confident the manager can overcome their own personal awkwardness and treat them with the necessary understanding needed. The signs of avoidance are easy to find. Look out for calls which come in when managers are out at meetings. Listen back to the voicemail. Or those who will call and leave a message with a junior member of staff or a PA. Some employees even announce their absence by text. Each of these represents a desire to avoid interaction and potential challenge. Managers then compound these errors. They fail to probe deeply enough when employees do return to work, or they fail to adjust their style to the real nature of the problem. They collude in the avoidance of accountability. And, being seen to do so by other work colleagues, they contribute to the growth of a culture where tolerance of sickness absence is the norm. Our turnaround started with facts – the numbers: short and long-term sickness; trends and patterns; average duration; known causes; and areas for particular concern. We wanted to know who did their return work and counselling interviews and who didn't. A single council-wide plan was built, based on this analysis. It was grounded in five key areas which all link with each other and must be tackled together. First, information and data. Standardising the way in which we manage data helps. Putting it in a form that is easy to interpret, share and act on is vital. As is making sure managers use this information – both in terms of return to work and in making sure all teams understand that lost days are extra tasks for everyone else. Senior managers are accountable at bi-monthly performance reviews for the results in their areas, yet accountability for the whole plan rests with the head of human resources. Second, systems and controls. Sickness absence management is a mainstream activity. This is both about designing the controls and making sure people make use of them. Policies are fine on paper, but what is the level of compliance? We achieve this through running ‘attendance clinics' for managers. These occur if local performance is out of line with corporate performance, and is a collaborative discussion between the senior manager of the service, HR and others to identify the reasons why. We found some managers were not holding a counselling interview when the first trigger for short-term absence was reached. They left it until the 12-month trigger. Short-term absence was high and employees with genuine problems never got the chance to discuss them until many months had elapsed. For others, the awkward moment of explaining their level of attendance was postponed for a year. Third, communication. We send out a global message – one person's inappropriate absence is another's extra work. It's a regular feature of our chief executive's briefing. Like all messages, they are more palpable if repeated. So we repeat our key points in everything from managers' forums, to team meetings, to sessions with new employees, to meetings with trades unions. Fourth, training. From filling in forms to filling uncomfortable silences. People will avoid training about sickness absence return as much as they will avoid confronting employees. So, we made it compulsory. These are workshop-based sessions and allow managers to try out return to work interviews. Just as salespeople rehearse ways of overcoming objections, so our managers wrestled with difficult interviews. Finally, health and wellbeing. Many people need help to address the underlying problems that are manifest in not being at work. At the core of this is ensuring that every employee is able to be and feel well. This is about culture. Staff who are clear about what is expected of them, and able to navigate uncertainty, are better able to cope. Poor culture can be a significant contributor to poor sickness rates. We haven't cracked sickness absence yet. But we have gone from 16.3 days to 11.4 days in the last year. Our approach is underpinned by a recognition of the real challenges that both staff and managers face. It may be awkward to have to deal with sickness head on, but it's a lot less so than having to explain why you may be the only manager who still can't deal with it. Howard Crabtree is hr corporate manager at Northampton BC

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WHITEHALL

A cure for all ills

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