When every employer would benefit from reducing sickness absence, it’s not surprising that Healthy Working Lives adviser Kathryn Sinclair finds it’s one of the main reasons they call on her expertise.

Kathryn, who is based at NHS Lothian in Edinburgh, has noticed that staff absence is now one of the most common incentives for organisations to sign up for the Healthy Working Lives Award Programme.

“Staff absence seems to be central to a lot of the motivation for a lot of organisations to get involved,” she agrees. “They recognise that having staff healthy and happy will be good for the organisation – and of course, for the staff.”

Yet, in Kathryn’s experience, many employers don’t realise how just much they could be doing to manage all the various factors that contribute to employees falling ill or being absent because of other problems.

Often employers aren’t sure what to do with the information that they are already collecting, and Kathryn explains that the first step is to look at any common denominators across the workplace or patterns of absence for individual members of staff.

“It’s amazing the number of organisations who don’t record absence in terms of being in a position to identify trends,” she says. “They may have a process of filling in a form, but not a process of being able to look at why it is happening. "

“For example, if someone is off every second Monday, is there a reason for this that the employer can help with? Also employees who are parents or carers may be phoning in sick because they don’t know what else they can do.”

Kathryn, who is supporting around 60 organisations through the Award Programme, says spotting trends can help an employer to focus their efforts to improve health in the workplace.

“There is one organisation that I work with that through the recording found that around Christmas they have a lot of absence through flu and colds,” she adds. “On the back of that, they will launch a keep well initiative over the winter.”

Another point that employers could bear in mind is how they communicate about absence in a more positive way – ensuring that employees understand that their health and wellbeing, rather than profit margins, are the top priority.

“We have to change the culture,” Kathryn says. “When organisations implement attendance policies, there is a lot of work needing to be done to get it across to staff that it’s not about monitoring, it’s about support. "

“The message is, ‘It’s not so we can come back and discipline you but so we can identify a way that we can support you, whether that’s in your working environment or workload’.”

Kathryn adds that those employers who have achieved the highest levels through the Healthy Working Lives Award Programme often find they have made an impact on staff absence along the way. “The organisations that identify and reduce staff absence tend to be the ones that have reached the Gold level,” she says.

Before signing up for the Award Programme, some employers have expected the process to be bureaucratic and time-consuming, but Kathryn explains that’s not the case.

“People think it will be paper-heavy, but they can do it all electronically. One organisation has submitted their entire Gold application on a flash drive. "

“The other thing is that if employers embark on it, they are in it for the long haul. You work through it at your own pace, and there is no time limit.”

Kathryn adds that most employers she works with come to realise that the time spent on the Award Programme is an investment in the future health of their workforce.

“There still is some cynicism out there about an award that goes on the wall, but I think it’s changing,” she adds.

“People are realising that it is a badge that they can use to promote themselves as a good employer.”