Agenda item

Surjit Nagra, HR and OD Business Partner, provided an update on staff wellbeing, the key points of which were:

Policy Compliance

Policy compliance equated to 50% weighting of the overall management score. Figures for Q2 2015 (April-June) showed a marked decrease in compliance across the authority. This was predominantly due to Managers not returning their sickness absence tracker sheets. To address this, efforts were being made to ensure Managers were submitting their tracker sheets in a timely fashion.

Training Attendance

This equated to 25% of the overall score, and showed stable figures across the Q2 period. Managers were attending training, whilst those still requiring training were being identified and booked onto the relevant courses.

Occupational Health Referrals and Attendance

OH Referrals and Attendance equated to 25% of the overall scorecard. The data was stable and high, showing that the majority of Managers were referring staff to OH upon hitting a trigger (number of days absent).

However, the number of staff not attending their OH meetings had increased. Steps had been taken to ensure that such occurrences were not repeated, and it was expected that the date for Q3 would show an improvement.

In response to questions asked at previous meetings of the Committee, Members were informed that the Council’s OH provider was OHWorks, for whose services the Council paid a fixed price. The contract had originally been tendered for 3 years, and had been extended for a further year, pending a review.

Overall Management Score

Considering the above criteria, the overall score was seen to have decreased during Q2. The main contributory factor for this decrease was the non compliance of managers in submitting absence trackers.

Staff Absences

Since the last report to the Committee, data for sickness days lost across the Authority in Q2 had remained at 0.6, a decrease in comparison to the same period in 2014.

Days lost per FTE were broken down by Directorate, with 3 of the 4 Directorates meeting their targets. The Regeneration, Housing & Resources Directorate did not meet their target, in some part due to the limited return of the tracking data.

Reasons for absence remained similar to previous reports, with the top 3 being ‘Not Stated’, Skeletal breaks/sprains’ and ‘Infections’.

Absences due to skeletal breaks/sprains had reduced and further analysis was being conducted to see if this was due to the Physiotherapy Clinics that had been introduced. Absences due to infections were expected to rise with the advent of the winter months, though to address this, a programme of flu vaccinations was being offered to staff. In addition, the Council was due to become a ‘smoke free’ Council in line with a new smoking policy, as of April 2016. It was hoped that this would further lessen absences due to throat or respiratory issues.

Steps were being taken to further identify the reasons for absence and thereby reduce days lost due to sickness.

Members asked a number of questions, including:

Members felt that the 25% weighting for this Manager Training was too high. Could this be amended before the next report?

Human Resources would look into this and feed back to the Committee at the next meeting.

With regard to the reasons for staff absence, the ‘Not Stated’ category was a concern to Members. How could the Council act to reduce absences, if it did not know the cause?

The Council was unable to remove this category. However, with the move to the new HR Management system detailed in agenda item 7, there would be a wider variety of absence reasons to choose from. Managers were being trained to ensure they were properly reporting the reasons for absence.

Feedback from the Housing Directorate, situated at Landmark Place, was that the working conditions were unpleasant. A large number of staff were enclosed within a small space, which could contribute to the spread of infections. In addition, morale was low, which in turn could contribute to work absences. Could this be reviewed?

This matter had been noted following discussions with staff, and conversations with senior management on how to resolve these issues were ongoing.

In the private sector, staff absences were closely aligned with performance and appraisals. Could this be implemented within the Council?

The Chief Executive and Senior Management teams were closely reviewing staff absences with a view to reducing the number of days lost. The new AD, and the OD/HR Business Partners, will be working with CMT and SMTs to increase the focus on reducing absence.

Resolved -   That the report be noted.