How to use data to address workplace absence

Coughlin’s moment of transformation came just over two years ago when Providence became the last of British Columbia’s provincial health authorities to implement the early absence reporting line (EARL) that all employees, including management, must call to report an absence from scheduled work.

The system has put an unprecedented amount of information about employee absence patterns at the fingertips of Coughlin and her team.

Read: How to address workplace absenteeism

“It’s been such a good thing for the organization because it allows us to get away from assumptions or anecdotal information,” she says.

“When you let the data tell a story, it’s harder for the union or management to come in and say, ‘Well, that’s not true.’ The data speaks for itself. Anyone can say something, but it’s having the data to back it up that’s the important thing.”

Enthusiasm lacking

Paula Allen, vice-president of research and integrative solutions at Morneau Shepell, says she’s still surprised at the lack of enthusiasm from Canadian companies when it comes to tracking and analyzing absence data and then feeding the information back into an absence management program.

In its most recent report on absenteeism, the Conference Board of Canada found less than half of employers — 46 per cent — did any kind of absence tracking in 2013, despite pinning the cost to the Canadian economy of all of those missing days at close to $17 billion per year.

46% of employers track absenteeism

“There’s no question you’ll be able to save money because you can figure out where the issues are and who really needs help. It pays for itself,” says Allen.

“When you get a better understanding of what’s happening in your organization, you can start to prevent issues and improve the lives of your employees. But it all starts with having that data.”

According to Allen, the very act of letting employees know an employer is tracking absences can have an immediate impact on attendance rates as managers are able to nudge outliers into line by publicizing average rates of absence.

Read: How coping skills can keep your employees engaged at work

“Some employees don’t always have an awareness that their absences are outside the norm,” says Allen. “It’s a bit like when I think I’ve been gaining a little weight, but it’s not until I step on the scales and see those extra 10 pounds that it hits home. The other thing you can do is identify people who are trending towards disability leave and intervene early to get them the help and support they need. It can be very costly for the employer and unfortunate for the employee if they do end up going off on disability leave.”

Changing the culture

At Providence, the effect of EARL’s implementation was virtually instantaneous, with absence rates moving quickly from the worst among the province’s health authorities to the best. Although methods had improved since Coughlin joined the organization, she says she still had very little data to work with in the years immediately prior to implementation.

The launch coincided with a concerted effort to change the culture at Providence, where Coughlin says employees had come to view sick time as an entitlement. The system works by recording employee responses to a number of questions about their absence and then forwarding the message automatically to their manager rather than a central staffing line.

The system triggers various actions, depending on the rates and lengths of absences. They include referrals to wellness programs and meetings with managers. When the overall absence rate of an individual hits the five per cent threshold, the case proceeds to a formal process designed to get to the heart of the problem. Managers have an incentive to stay on top of the issues through the production of monthly reports that break down the numbers by department and identify trends in the data.

9.3 days
The average rate of absenteeism in 2011 for a full-time Canadian employee

Source: Conference Board of Canada study of absenteeism in Canada

“People are getting faster access to services they didn’t even know existed, and for those that need it, they are referred for help to deal with chronic medical conditions,” says Coughlin.

Read: Trends in workplace wellness

Coughlin says the increasing points of contact scared off the worst abusers of sick time. But with the initial effect of the awareness beginning to wear off two years into the EARL program, Providence is aiming to keep up the momentum with a regular “EARL says” feature in the employee newsletter.

“It’s written as if EARL is a person saying, ‘This is the time and day of the week when most people call in sick,’ and other things like that,” says Coughlin. “It’s a kind of funny way of telling the story of our data in a way that grabs attention.”

Treading a fine line

With so much new data on employee behaviour available, organizations have a fine line to tread between coming off as a caring and supportive employer and looking like a Big Brother workplace. Coughlin says Providence attempted to achieve some balance by moving its attendance and workplace program out of the realm of human resources, which employees tend to view as a disciplinary body, and into the more neutral occupational health and safety department.

Read: Who are the winners of the 2015 Workplace Benefits Awards?

Still, Providence will crack down on bad behaviour when EARL data reveals it, she says. For example, the new system revealed cases in which employees were absent around statutory holidays but turned up on the holiday itself in order to claim double or even triple rates of pay, she notes.

“If a manager is suspicious, they do have the ability to withhold sick time until they are satisfied that the absence was legitimate,” says Coughlin.

$16.6 billion The cost of employee absenteeism to Canadian companies in 2012

Source: Conference Board of Canada study of absenteeism in Canada

Prevention and engagement are key

The strength of data analysis, however, goes beyond identifying problems in an absence management program. Thomas Gergely, the leader of the Reed Group’s Canadian absence management consultancy operations, says the increasing availability of data across organizations and industries makes it easier for companies to put their own absence management efforts into a wider context and then target opportunities for improvement.

“There are essentially two things that influence the cost of a program: the duration and frequency of claims,” he says. “If you know that your absence duration level is the best in class, then you can target your investment in a way that is likely to influence the frequency of the claims. The reciprocal is also the case. Employers now have a much more compelling ability to influence their outcomes because they have the insight to target programs in the right way.”

Leigh-Ann Ing, a principal in the health and productivity division at Mercer, says organizations need to take a more integrated approach to absence management if they hope to proactively improve their program rather than react to problem areas.

“By getting a more in-depth picture, it allows you to be more accountable when setting benchmarks. You have a better finger on the pulse about why people are actually absent,” says Ing, who recommends that employers incorporate data concerning disability management, parental leave and engagement into their program analyses.

Read: Employees more aware of workplace presenteeism than employers

According to Gergely, engagement ratings will become a key measure as employers try to shift their absence management investment to prevention. Predicting and then measuring which actions improve employee engagement is extremely valuable because it’s such a good early indicator of future absence issues, he says.

“The smart money is moving to pre-claim from post-claim. If you look at engagement scores and absence metrics, the correlation between low engagement scores and high absence rates [are] irrefutable. If engagement is really bad, you get many more mental-health cases because people don’t want to be there.”

Michael McKiernan is a freelance writer.

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