Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Government setting an example
A number of public sector organisations have recently put in place occupational health strategies. One of these, a Strategy for a Healthy Police Service has achieved a significant reduction in levels of absence. (See article in Occupational Health Review July/August 2004) By looking at how the Police and other organisations developed and implemented such strategies the following lessons learnt have been identified to help other public sector organisations decide what should and should not be done in order to put in place a successful strategy.
The specific aims, not just aspirations, of the strategy must be clearly defined and realistic.
Milestones should be in place in order to monitor progress towards achieving these aims so that short falls can be quickly identified and addressed. While monitoring progress, it is essential to get feedback on progress from all involved in delivery of the project e.g. managers, employees, trade union officials etc.
Planning needs to allow for flexibility - you need to be able and willing to change your course of action if the strategy is not meeting its aims.
Communications on the strategy should be targeted to the audience. Different messages will be relevant to employers, occupational health professionals and the general public.
The message that sickness absence is a problem that the organisation must own must be not be lost.
It is important to get the commitment of all stakeholders throughout the organisation - everyone from senior management to support staff need to be committed or success will be difficult to achieve. One of the best ways to achieve this is by talking to people regularly and, ideally, face-to-face. Messages must be cascaded throughout the organisation from both the top and the bottom.
As early as possible involve the trade unions and other employee representative groups and inform them of what you are planning to do. Working with the trade unions and employees will help to gain buy in for what you are trying to achieve, it may identify new risks/benefits not previously identified and it will help to emphasise and communicate the benefits of the strategy to the workers and the organisation.
Engaging line managers is key to the success of implementing a strategy. Having started to implement the Strategy for a Healthy Police Service, it became evident that line management commitment was needed to deliver and so specific training and conferences for line managers in absence management are being set up. The organisation, the line managers and the individuals concerned will therefore be made aware that through early intervention and appropriate referrals, long term sickness absence is more likely to be reduced.
It is important to engage the workforce as early as possible and the best way to do this is face-to-face. The Strategy for a Healthy Police Service found using occupational healthcare professionals, who are a pool of accessible knowledge and have credibility, was most useful to communicating key messages to the workforce
It is essential that you are able to establish your current position, where you want to be, and by when at the earliest opportunity. Once you have obtained this baseline information you will then need to set realistic - but challenging - targets for the short and longer term. This rule should apply to both the strategy as whole and the individual projects contained within it.
It may also be useful to set out your vision of what your organisation will look like once the strategy has successfully been put in place. This vision should encapsulate what you are trying to achieve without necessarily including specific figures for reductions.
If there are large differences in sickness absence figures within different parts of an organisation, thought should be given to assigning different targets to different organisation sections. This should be accompanied by an overall target for the organisation.
It is important to ensure that funding allocated to delivery of your strategy is protected against other uses (i.e. 'ring fenced'). To ensure the funding is used for the intended purpose it is useful to clearly establish criteria for its use. For example, the criteria for the Strategy for a Healthy Police Service funding for the year 2004/05 are: -
How you plan to evaluate the success of the strategy needs to be built into the early planning process. The evaluation will need to be able to measure the success of the strategy as a whole as well as specific projects/methods for reducing sickness absence. You will also need to take into consideration other factors that may have an influence on any changes to sickness absence figures. At the planning stage the involvement of independent inspectors or consultants to help you evaluate the strategy should be considered.
Timing of evaluation is also very important. For example, it was found that the evaluation of the Strategy for a Healthy Police Service was undertaken too early - after 6 months - and as a result not enough time had passed for strategy to take effect and for the changes to happen. Subsequent evaluations have proved more useful after a longer period of time has elapsed.
If you have any lessons that you have learned or case studies
you would like to share please email us at gseteam@hse.gsi.gov.uk or use
our feedback form.