Telling us of absences.

Trying to rehabilitate an absent employee at week 26, for example is often just too late.

It’s been identified that where absence is concerned, weeks four to six are crucial. This is because there’s a greater chance of getting someone back to work when intervening and introducing a suitable rehabilitation programme earlier on in their illness.

We’ve proved that absences are on average 29% shorter when we’re notified at week six compared to week 26.

Potential cost of absence

For a company with 1,000 employees, even a 10% reduction in working days lost could result in an annual saving of £112,200.

The latest CIPD report highlights that in over 20% of companies, employees are still going to work when they are unwell due to fears about job security.

All this leads to the importance of having the correct support in place to deal with staff sickness quickly and efficiently, to treat absent employees appropriately and return them to the workplace as fast as possible.

The support we provide

Long ago we moved from the idea that providing income protection involved waiting for a claim then paying a cheque.

Our Workplace Recovery proposition encourages early notification of absence followed by extensive rehabilitation using a panel of independent experts, with the entire process managed by a team of experienced benefit managers.

How we're different

Where appropriate we pay for rehabilitation from as early as week six – recognised by the government as the tipping point for getting employees back to work.

Other providers may ask you to make claims for this treatment through your private medical insurance or other policies, but if we’ve recommended it, we’ll fund it and provide the treatment through our independent experts.

As soon as we’re notified of a long term absence (more than four weeks), we can begin our assessment to start helping your employee get back to work.

Track sickness absence right from day one

By selecting the optional sickness absence reporting service your client's employees can access a centralised call centre based sickness absence reporting system. This provides your clients with essential absence management information, as well as real-time reporting and notification to relevant managers.

The system is provided by our partner Roodlane and ensures that the employer has all the information they need, when they need it.

When sickness absence reporting is selected combined with your Workplace Recovery solution, the cost is less than £7 per head per year.

For schemes over 250 lives the system will send an email to remind the employer to complete an Absence notification form. This not only starts the rehab process but also helps them qualify for their Early Notification Bonus.

You need to know

We’ll continue to provide cover and pay any valid claims as long as the employee meets the definition of incapacity that is set out in the quote and premiums are paid.