Many organisations now collect absence statistics but few combine them with other data sets to explore trends and issues with a view to reducing absence. This not only limits outcomes but also helps ensure that people issues rarely make it to their rightful place – namely strategic board level. In this article, we take a look at the benefits of taking a much more integrated approach across your organisation’s risk and human resources functions to tackle absence and, moreover, help turn business strategy into results through your people.
It’s high time to combine everything – from engagement surveys, entry and exit interviews to insurance claims data, the latter spanning everything from health, risk, employers’ liability, employee assistance programmes and occupational health. This isn’t blue sky, big data nirvana. This is a totally new and essential approach. It is happening now and it is much needed. Take the latest data from the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), as an example.
Although it’s encouraging to learn that 87% of organisations across all industry sectors now collect absence data, according to the CIPD’s 2015 Absence Management Survey, only a third (33%) combine absence data with other data sets to explore trends and issues. Those that did in 2014 were twice as likely to achieve absence targets compared with those that didn’t (34% vs 16%).
PINPOINT A PROBLEM
Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) still, by far and away, represent the thorn in the side of the construction industry when it comes to short-term (up to 4 weeks) absence. 64% of self-reported work related illness was due to MSDs in 2014/15, according to latest statistics from the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). In fact, data from a GP reporting scheme of new cases of occupational illness found last year that the rate of work-related MSDs in the construction sector was almost twice that across all industries.
The overall cost of workplace injuries and illness to the construction sector now stands at around £0.9bn, according to the HSE. But it’s not only the financial cost to individual business’ and the UK economy, but also the difficult to quantify aspects such as impact upon corporate reputation and the inevitable knock-on effect on recruitment and retention. In the current ‘war for talent’ across the construction sector, the value of reputation cannot be overestimated.
VALUE YOUR TALENT
So how do we elevate all of these issues to strategic board level and ensure a truly joined-up approach to their monitoring, management and mitigation?
The key is for organisation’s to place a value on their ‘intangible’ assets. This is no mean feat but it is something on which the CIPD is currently working via its ‘Valuing Your Talent’ initiative.
A survey by the CIPD of more than 300 global executives found that non-financial assets such as knowledge and human capital, customer relationships and intellectual property represent some of an organisation’s most important assets in determining its value – well over and above things like financial assets, manufacturing assets and shareholder value. In effect, 68% of key business factors were people related.
The CIPD, together with various industry bodies, is developing the ‘Valuing Your Talent’ framework to help organisations understand and measure the impact of their people on business performance and, in doing so, realise the full potential of their workforce. This initiative is helping to influence Government thinking around workforce management and transparent reporting.
