High levels of absence from work put pressures on both an organisation and their employees. At Healthwork, we believe that there are significant benefits to be achieved through early intervention of physical and psychological health problems that can cause absence from the workplace.
The traditional model of providing sickness absence services is to make early intervention once an employee has been absent from work for 7 days or longer. We are now introducing an exciting new service called ‘Healthwork Direct’, a service that takes over from the client all sickness absence management for the first 7 days of the employee absence.
Healthwork Direct will offer to our clients a bespoke service using a software system and absence management services specifically designed to address the needs of the client. Additionally, Healthwork Direct can feed directly into most human resources software systems to make the implementation and data transfer easy and simple.
Healthwork Direct will be staffed 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, by qualified and experienced Occupational Health Advisers (OHA) with the support of our consultant Occupational Health Physicians. The OHA’S would provide confidential medical advice, referrals to physiotherapy services and other support services, and give guidance compliant with NHS and Healthwork clinical guidelines.
Healthwork Direct would take over all absence management for the first 7 days of the employee sickness absence. In line with the client company’s Absence Management Policy, the employee would be required to keep in contact with Healthwork Direct from the first day of sickness absence. Most employees would have returned to work after 7 days of absence. If the employee has not returned to work by day 8, the case would be handed over to the Occupational Health Department and Line Manager.
Healthwork Direct will be able to supply true ‘real time’ absence data and invaluable management information, identifying trends and causation factors of absence. Logging of information on Healthwork Direct will enable managers, occupational health, and HR to view the information and manage staff through periods of sickness absence.
As sickness absence will be accurately recorded, detailed management information can be provided to highlight trends or ‘hotspots’ so that they can be targeted with appropriate solutions.
Benefits to Your Business
Healthwork Direct will deliver a consistent application of each organisation’s absence policies and provide accurate reporting that helps organisations understand the impact of employee attendance issues.
Healthwork Direct provides:
• A safe pair of hands
• Dedicated 24/7 nurse advice
• Automatic alerts
• Full compliance with the Data Protection Act (1998)
• Confidential and secure data handling
Benefits to Employers
Healthwork Direct empowers businesses to manage absence more effectively, saving time and money while improving productivity.
Key benefits:
• Saves money in relation to absence-related costs
• Reduces long and short-term absence levels
• Improves workflow and increases productivity
• Relieves managers of the administrative burden of absence reporting
• Ensures transparency through real-time analysis and reporting
• Increases staff morale, staff are more motivated and productive when sickness is reduced
• Provides better information an absence and trends in absence than many current systems
• Helps with statistical reporting
Benefits to Employees
Key benefits:
• Employee access to free, confidential medical advice from Registered General Nurses (RGN) with specialist occupational health qualifications, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• When an absence is reported, employees receive instant advice that recommends an appropriate course of action
• During the length of the absence, our nurses are always on hand to offer further advice
• Every employee is treated fairly and in confidence
The main benefit is the reduction of absence in the workplace. The aim of Healthwork Direct is to facilitate an employee’s return to work as soon as possible, without compromising the health and wellbeing of the employee and the health of their colleagues.
Contact us for more information.
Healthwork Direct
