Attendance Management Sub Group
Terms of reference
Background
Sickness has a major impact on the council's ability to deliver efficient and effective services. The need for effective but fair attendance management procedures is vital, as well as ensuring the best possible employee relations whilst managing sickness absence levels.
The Corporate Issues Scrutiny Committee regularly considers attendance management throughout the council due to the impact; in particular how much sickness absence costs the council. Members are also interested in how directorates are striving to improve the attendance culture within their organisations and create an environment where people want to come to work, how they may be reviewing work life balance and evaluating its impact on attendance.
Members are also keen to monitor the progress of the stress audits being undertaken by directorates and the correlation and impact on attendance management.
During a meeting of the Corporate Issues Scrutiny Committee in August 2009 it was suggested that due to the high level of sickness it may be appropriate to form a sub group, to enable members to consider the issue in-depth. At the initial meeting of the sub group members were informed that there is a review of attendance management that has just commenced in Community, Health and Social Care directorate (CH and SC). The review is being led by an assistant director, and includes union representatives and Human Resources (HR).
Considerations of the CH and SC review will include:
- Application of the Attendance Management Policy across the directorate.
- Pilot the use of ‘Diagnostic Solutions' who will be the first point of call if a member of staff rings in sick. Nurses are on hand to offer advice and do follow up phone calls. Oldham and Rochdale have used this service and have had a drastic reduction in sickness levels.
Key objectives
The key objectives of the group are:
- To ensure a fair and consistent process is applied across the city council.
- To ensure we develop best practice in managing attendance.
- To produce a checklist for selecting samples of managers accountability for attendance management (e.g. hot spots, departments, etc), to establish some of the underlying reasons for poor performance within targeted services. (Await the outcome of the CH and SC review).
Scope of the work
Members agreed to undertake the following in support of the objectives:
- Monitor the progress and outcomes of the attendance management review that human resources are undertaking in Community, Health and Social Care directorate.
- Establish how the findings from the above review will be shared with other directorates and implemented.
- Monitor the attendance management statistics for the last 6 month period per directorate.
- Review and monitor progress of stress audits in each directorate and the impact this has on attendance management. Establish what support is available to staff if it is work related stress.
- Establish what training is provided for new managers on the attendance management policy.
- Determine whether SAP (the council's financial and personal computer system) accurately records sickness absences of part time staff and school based staff.
- What further support or guidance do managers require from HR?
Information to be obtained by the following;
Interviews with:
- Officers who are undertaking the review within CH and SC directorate.
- Officers from each directorate who are responsible for stress audits.
- This is not an exhaustive list and other officers and individuals may be identified during the course of the review.
- Identify best practice within other Local Authorities.
Key documents to be considered:
- Council Attendance Management Policy and guidelines for managers.
- Sickness absence statistics.
- Stress audits.
- Workforce profile (for comparisons with other local authorities).
Timescale
- Start - November 2009. Anticipated end date to be determined.
Reporting arrangements
Report to:
- Corporate Issues Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
- Cabinet.
- Feedback to directorates.
Members of the sub group
- Councillor Turner
- Councillor Jane Murphy
- Councillor Dobbs
- Councillor Deas
- Councillor Tope
- Representative from Human Resources.
This page was last updated on 7 April 2010
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