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Healthy enabling work environments and reduced sickness absence

Employers who manage disability more effectively by creating enabling work environments will see reduced sickness absence due to mismanagement: The CBI estimates that absence costs British Industry £13.2 billion a year. [i]

Companies that use

  • employee involvement programs
  • conflict resolution and grievance procedures
  • workforce stabilisation and continuity policies
  • early support and assistance programmes for employees who experience disability

= experience less lost working time due to illness and injuries [ii]

Psychosocial and work environmental factors are far more accurate predictors of disability than physical factors...The attitude of injured workers towards their job, manager, and co-workers carriers greater weight in the occurrence of chronic disability than the severity of the illness itself. [iii]

Sources

  1. [i] CBI / AXA Absence survey 2008
  2. [ii] Lewin and Schecter, 'Four Factors Lower Disability Rates, Personnel Journal, May 1995
  3. [iii] Rudy M. Yandrick, "Speed your disabled worker's return" HR Magazine 42(6) 1997.