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Wincanton slashes absence rates with new pilot scheme
Page 46
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WINCANTON HAS cut the number of sick days taken by its workforce by 10,000 in a successful pilot scheme, saving E178 per person The trial, run by absence management company Active Health Partners (AHP), asks employees to ring a nursing line to report absence and symptoms rather than their line managers.
The nurses provide health advice and an estimated time for recovery. Carol Madden, HR manager at Wincanton, says the nurse-led approach has been well received by employees and has cut the average duration of short-term absences from seven to four days. Before implementing the new scheme. Wincanton became aware that absence reporting was being handled differently at different sites some premises included and others excluded long-term sickness from their management figures. The company says its objectives were to improve competitiveness and cut costs, while ensuring consistent good practice across the business. However, an essential foundation for any scheme was that workers received a high level of care.
The absence management service was piloted for nine months across 11 contracts and involved 5,500 staff based at 20 sites. AHP nurses took some 22,000 calls.
The project has not yet been adopted across the whole business, but Wincanton is considering full-scale implementation.