Although untracked absenteeism often strains benefits budgets, most employers don’t do much about it. But Leo LeBlanc, vice-president of HR and corporate affairs at Co-op Atlantic, discovered that getting a handle on absenteeism can bring the company significant savings. And one of the beauties of saving money on benefits is that there are more funds available for initiatives such as a workplace gym to promote employee health.
LeBlanc first noted a serious absenteeism problem back in 2004. The average employee at the Moncton, N.B.-based company was losing 27.5 days per year—more than double the industry average. And that was at a cost of more than $750,000 a year to the company. “We realized we needed to do something to fix the problem in a way that would boost productivity gains but still be conscious of our employees’ longtime commitment to the organization,” he says. “We had to be respectful—we owe our employees that.”
Rather than deal with the problem alone, LeBlanc chose to partner with Medavie Blue Cross, the company’s health and disability benefits carrier. The insurer’s attendance support program, called inConnection, had caught his eye and the two organizations worked together to customize the program to fit the specific needs at Co-op Atlantic. “We had a spirit of partnership right from the beginning,” says Shelley Kee, vice-president, group business (Atlantic Canada) Medavie Blue Cross. “Since our teams already worked together on disability management, we could draw on the foundation we’d established over the past 38 years.”
To implement the program as a pilot project, it was critical to get supervisors and the union onside, and to establish employees’ trust, says LeBlanc. “We wanted to make sure they realized that our new attendance program is about giving employees a helping hand instead of discipline.” A three-day absence from work now triggers a call from a Medavie Blue Cross case manager, who then provides a confidential resource who listens to employees’ concerns and helps to educate him or her about the benefits available through the program. The idea is to get the employee back to work as soon as possible or, if necessary, to provide a seamless process through to short- or even long-term disability (STD and LTD). Co-op Atlantic also hired an on-site occupational nurse to complement the intervention calls.
In addition, LeBlanc created Co-op Atlantic’s first attendance management policy, which went into effect in October 2008. “Most of our attendance program is meant to help employees get back to work, but if someone loses too much time that isn’t medically validated, then their employment contract may be terminated,” explains LeBlanc. Next on LeBlanc’s agenda is the development of an in-house information system to avoid current duplications in tracking attendance and to analyze the numbers.
These days, LeBlanc smiles when he looks at the latest absenteeism rates. As of February, rates had dropped to 16.9 days per employee per year. “We still have a way to go, but things are looking pretty good,” he says. “Now we’re implementing the program across the whole organization. The first stream allowed us to save direct expenses from STD and LTD and our yearly costs have gone down. And our disability reserve requirements are down significantly. We actually got a cheque back, and that’s the kind of thing that makes our CEO and CFO take notice.”