Managing absence well - A tale of great absence management

1. A tale of great absence management
A short story about the impact of good and bad absence management in SMEs
Identities in this story have been fictionalised based on real scenarios in the
workplace, discovered through our own research. All costs are accurate.

2. Absence and SMEs
According to our research, only 1/3 of SMEs have a
sufficient system to record absence. The difference
between managing absence well and managing it badly
can be significant.
Let’s take Cathy - a lady who owns three cake shops
across London and employs 28 people. How she manages
her absence can have a huge impact on her business,
insurance and most importantly, her people.

3. What happens when Cathy isn’t on top of
absence?
Cathy doesn’t have an online absence management system and
instead relies on paper holiday requests and return to work forms.
Organising and managing this is a drain on Cathy’s time.
She also isn’t the best at organising her desk, mixed with having to
transfer paperwork across the three locations, it’s easy for her to
misplace forms and forget to record holiday, resulting in staff
shortages. This negatively impacts customer service and risks losing
business and returning customers.
Cathy also hasn’t noticed that Sally, a baker in one of the stores, has
been taking sick days at regular intervals, often 2-3 days at a time
every 3 months. Not only is this absence having a financial impact on
her business but when she does notice, she is unable to confidently
approach Sally to question her absence as she doesn’t have the
data to back her up.

4. Her people start to feel the pinch
As Cathy hasn’t been recording and monitoring absence she
hasn’t realised that Jack, a cashier, has now been absent for 3
weeks. This means that Cathy hasn’t been able to support
Jack and direct him towards services that could help him to get
better quicker and return to work. Jack is feeling unsupported
and instead of getting better, is struggling with the idea of
returning to work.
For those at work, absent colleagues and double booking
holidays has placed more pressure on the team, which is
negatively impacting on productivity. This leads to low morale
as the team feel overworked and unsupported and some
consider leaving for a more harmonious environment.

5. As does her bank balance
Jack is still unwell and hasn’t returned to work for three months. It turns out he
has a back problem that has been left untreated, got worse and means he is
likely to be off for longer.
Cathy has to pay her people Statuary Sick Pay of £88.45 per week for the first
28 weeks of absence. Without insurance, she is having to pay these costs in
addition to more overtime for her team to cover the workload. She also has
no access to rehabilitation services, so cannot provide much medical support
to Jack that would help him back to work.
Cathy is left hoping that Jack recovers soon. She has no long term sick pay
insurance in place either so after six months will face a moral dilemma whether
to continuing paying him.

6. So, what happens when Cathy is on top of
absence?
If Cathy was to use an online management system, time taken
to record and manage absence would be reduced and she
would be able to see an overview of her people’s holiday and
sick entitlement easily.
Cathy would also be able to recognise recurring absences and
find out the cause behind them. She would then be able to
confidently approach Sally and provide tailored support or
act on illegitimate absence with data to back her up. This
places her in a stronger legal position too.

7. Her people are taken care of
By managing absence in an online system, Cathy is immediately alerted to Jack’s
absence and the given reason. As she also has insurance in place, her insurers
are then able to intervene quickly and provide Jack with physiotherapy to help
him back to work sooner. Even if she didn’t have insurance, she would still be
able react more quickly to the absence and better support Jack to return to
work.
As Cathy has been supporting Jack from the outset, her other employees feel
valued in their role and comforted that support will be given if they were to fall
sick.
Cathy is also able to see all absence and agreed holiday in an online calendar,
and is therefore able to organise cover and keep her business ticking over as
normal. This gives her people confidence that their holiday is confirmed and
they don’t need to worry about covering for others at the last minute.

8. Taking care of the cost
Cathy has to pay Jack Statuary Sick Pay of £88.45 per week for the first 28 weeks
of absence, so by reacting quickly and requesting support from her insurers, Jack
is able to return after only 5 weeks of absence.
Such a quick return means Cathy spends less on Statutory Sick Pay, and avoids
any further long term costs such as recruiting and training temporary staff to
cover for Jack.
It also means she doesn’t need to make a claim on her long term sick pay
insurance, which would otherwise start paying Jack after 28 weeks. With a great
claims record, next years premiums remain affordable.

9. Did you know absence management
and sick pay come as a package?
Ellipse are only group risk insurer to integrate absence
management and income protection. This means we can react to
absence data proactively and intervene quickly to help an
employee back to work.
It has 3 major components which complement the core long-term
disability insurance cover:
• Early notification to a case manager;
• An online absence management tool, TeamSeer; and
• Support Matters, a workplace support service.

10. It’s not as expensive as you think
If Cathy was to invest in disability insurance that included absence
management software, a basic benefit level, 50% of salary, no escalation, 28
week deferred period and payments only continuing for three years for 28
employees would cost £2,614.
The typical cost for a standalone absence management system is
approximately £30-£40 per employee per year, which would cost Cathy
roughly £1,000.
Depending on how you look at it, Cathy has gained herself £1,000 of valuable
software for free, or has nearly halved her insurance and absence
management costs.
(Plus because absence management is being implemented, Ellipse discount their premiums.)

11. TeamSeer is an online absence management and holiday planning tool, integrated as part of our Sick
Pay Complete product.
We believe in early intervention and case management. Businesses with Sick Pay Complete must
record their absence in TeamSeer and then we will be automatically notified when an absence lasts
four weeks and depending on the illness, this can be earlier.
TeamSeer is easy to setup online by the employer and employee data is held securely and kept
completely confidential. More information about Sick Pay Complete and TeamSeer can be found on
our website.

12. Ellipse is the trading style of the UK Branch of ERGO Lebensversicherung Aktiengesellschaft, which is
registered in England. Registration Number: BR010594.
Registered office: 15 Bermondsey Square, London SE1 3UN.
ERGO Lebensversicherung Aktiengesellschaft is authorised by BaFin (the German regulator), registration
number 1184 and is subject to limited regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority. Details of the extent
of our regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority are available upon request.