In the first part of this triptych on Strategic Absenteeism Management, you were able to read about the costs and risks you face as an employer when dealing with absenteeism. And there are quite a few of them!
In this second part, we’ll show you that you can get results with a thoughtful approach and explain in more detail what costs you can avoid and where you can realize savings. We call that the savings potential.
In the final part of the triptych, we provide you with some tips on how to get started with this in concrete terms.
Part 2 of 3: Savings opportunities
Understanding different savings opportunities
Fortunately, there are ways to cut costs around absenteeism: you have a number of knobs you can turn to prevent costs from skyrocketing.
Savings opportunities around absenteeism can be divided into four types:
- Reducing absenteeism and benefit duration.
- Retrieving funds
- Using compensation and subsidies
- Smartly designing a long-term integrated approach
Reduce absenteeism and benefit duration
The most obvious way to reduce costs is to prevent the threat of absenteeism and shorten and reduce ongoing absenteeism. When the length of absence is reduced, you pay less continuation of wages and less additional costs, such as health and safety services, interventions, counseling or replacement. You also reduce the risk of an eventual claim for benefits for which you bear the cost (directly or indirectly).
The possibility of influencing your side will vary for each absence case, and customization is necessary. By implementing targeted case management and appropriate absenteeism policies, you will start working on both absenteeism duration and the absenteeism threshold, and you can reduce your costs.
Retrieving funds
When an award of Social Security or WIA benefits does occur, you can influence the duration or amount of benefits by taking the appropriate actions. Again, this is different for each case and requires customization.
Whereas for one person, treatment advised by the company doctor will result in a recovery report, for another person, actively requesting a reassessment from the UWV will result in a lower disability percentage and thus a lower claim attributed to the employer.
Regardless, it pays to keep examining whether the benefit does justice. Possibly it can be reduced, stopped or converted to a benefit for which you, the employer, are no longer responsible. WIA case management allows you to continuously monitor (or have monitored) for opportunities for savings and take advantage of them.
Take advantage of offsets and subsidies
A third way to save on absenteeism costs is to control allocations and recover any unjustified premium money. The annual Whk (work resumption fund) decision from the Tax and Customs Administration tells you more about the amount of benefit costs attributed to you as an employer.
Many errors are made by the UWV and the Internal Revenue Service in the allocation of benefit costs.
Therefore, always have the Whk decision checked and reviewed by the experts at Kröller Boom. Send us the decision and we’ll get right on it. You will then receive a very prompt response from us.
Our experience shows that you can save a lot of costs!
Long-term integrated approach
Our social security system places many costs and risks on employers. However, the system also has benefits for employers. There are many different grounds on which you can be compensated. For example, you can apply for grants and compensation for employees with a distance from the labor market.
Not every eligible employee knows this or reports it. And in many cases, employers don’t know this either. By paying attention to this in your human resources policy, you can avoid unnecessary costs!
In our last newsletter, we mentioned the sudden additional costs of absenteeism, such as penalties and fines. By embedding sound knowledge about this in your absence management, you can avoid costs in this area.
The choice of whether or not to become self-insured for the Sickness Benefits Act and/or WGA can also have a major impact on the premiums you pay. This newsletter article as the first part of this trilogy can still be read on this website.
Setting up your absenteeism infrastructure intelligently can make a big difference in costs. This way you have much more influence on the cost of absenteeism!
Knowledge = influence
To influence costs, you can turn a number of knobs. For each organization and in each absence case, the options will be different. The important thing is to know which knobs can be employed in the particular case and what the result of turning the knobs is.
Through insight and by making (or having made) calculations, you form an overall picture of your situation. Then you deploy the right knowledge, to achieve savings. You can change a lot by applying an integrated approach and smart design of policies.
By making strategic choices, combined with the right approach, you can achieve maximum results. For example, you choose to become self-insured and then ensure that you intensively manage ongoing absenteeism. Or you opt for more structure with another health and safety service and develop a new absence protocol. Just what suits you and your organization and development.
We call this approach strategic absence management.
Strategic absence management touches on all issues affecting your absence costs and savings opportunities. From strategic absence management, you look at your own situation with a helicopter view and can align your policy with the organizational strategy.
Employee journey
It is important to make attention to your employees and their well-being a strategic issue. This allows you to respond to what is going on. You benefit from this and at the same time you can also guide the employee to (continue to) work healthily.
Reducing and preventing absenteeism can have a place within all parts of the employee journey. From on-boarding, when you gain knowledge about grant grounds, for example, or at the interviews at advancement, as part of your prevention policy. The HR cycle is a tool for collecting knowledge and utilizing it for the benefit of your organization as well as the employee in question.
Every organization is different, every organization is in its own playing field and has its own interests. When it comes to absenteeism cost savings opportunities, customization will always need to be applied to achieve optimal results.
You can read more about this in the final part of this absence cost trilogy. Receive the final part of this triptych in your inbox? Then sign up for our newsletter!
Want to know what’s best for your organization?
Kröller Boom oversees the entire and complex playing field you face as an HR and Finance professional and knows the knobs you can turn to work toward the goals your organization has set.
Our specialists are happy to help you in the areas of strategic HR policy, absence management, social security, health and safety services and sustainable employability.
Want to seek advice on shaping an integrated health policy, or on developing a successful absenteeism approach?
Then contact our specialists from the Corporate Wellness team at Kröller Boom:
corporatewellness@krollerboom.nl
.
We walk with you. With analysis and the insights you need, we advise you on solutions that will move you forward.