Royal Mail continues to target absenteeism
After sickness levels reached almost 6.5 pct of the entire workforce in 2004, Royal Mail has continued to concentrate on bringing levels of absenteeism down to acceptable levels.
Whilst the tactics used by Royal Mail to get employees back into work quickly have sometimes come in for criticism, absenteeism had reached such extraordinary proportions; it had little choice but to tackle the problem from all sides. Now employees can expect phone calls at home as well as medical assesments independent of their own GP. At one point, around 10,000 workers out of a total of 170,000, were off work.
Royal Mail also introduced incentives of prize draws for staff that had good attendance records but has in more recent years tried to persuade some of it’s tobacco-hooked employees to kick the habit after it made working areas smoke-free. Time taken out for ‘fag breaks’ is said to lose employers a significant amount of money as well as contributing to poor health and fitness in employees.
This year, Royal Mail is sending a 13.6-metre mobile training vehicle to 34 Royal Mail depots to promote health & safety awareness. Staff will have access to a range of services, based around shift patterns. Despite the costs involved in tacking absenteeism, Royal Mail said it was still significantly less than money lost through time taken off by employees.
After sickness levels reached almost 6.5 pct of the entire workforce in 2004, Royal Mail has continued to concentrate on bringing levels of absenteeism down to acceptable levels.
Whilst the tactics used by Royal Mail to get employees back into work quickly have sometimes come in for criticism, absenteeism had reached such extraordinary proportions; it had little choice but to tackle the problem from all sides. Now employees can expect phone calls at home as well as medical assesments independent of their own GP. At one point, around 10,000 workers out of a total of 170,000, were off work.
Royal Mail also introduced incentives of prize draws for staff that had good attendance records but has in more recent years tried to persuade some of it’s tobacco-hooked employees to kick the habit after it made working areas smoke-free. Time taken out for ‘fag breaks’ is said to lose employers a significant amount of money as well as contributing to poor health and fitness in employees.
This year, Royal Mail is sending a 13.6-metre mobile training vehicle to 34 Royal Mail depots to promote health & safety awareness. Staff will have access to a range of services, based around shift patterns. Despite the costs involved in tacking absenteeism, Royal Mail said it was still significantly less than money lost through time taken off by employees.
