March 11, 2009
Did you know...?
Unscheduled absenteeism has big impact on productivity, profitability and morale
Reducing absenteeism and presenteeism is crucial to employer’s survival in these economic times. While companies are “streamlining”, “right-sizing”, and “budget cutting” maintaining the productivity needed to generate a bottom line can be difficult if the remaining employees either don’t come to work or come to work sick and distracted.
Of all the expenses related to absenteeism, unscheduled absenteeism has the biggest impact on productivity, profitability and morale. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employers lose 2.8 million workdays a year to personal illnesses and injuries.
Presenteeism occurs when an individual comes to work but does not give full effort such as when employees come to work ill. Presenteeism costs employers as much as $250 billion dollars a year in lost productivity and cascading absences. In 2004, the Harvard Business review reported on a study done by Taft Medical Center regarding the impact of 28 medical conditions at Lockhead Martin Corporation. They estimated that employees working sick cost the company $34 million a year of which $1.8 million was related to just sinus and allergy conditions. People come to work sick for many reasons including a sense of obligation to their company/coworkers, fear of disciplinary action, saving their sick time for their children, no sick time, no access or money to healthcare, etc.
So what can you do to help control absenteeism and presenteeism in your workplace? First on the list is maintaining a positive morale with the workforce. Employees may be fearful about their job security, the economy, and the future, so they need regular reinforcement about the positive things happening in your organization. Even in a down economy, take time to celebrate the people who contribute to the survival, successes and improvements in your organization.
A personal leave bank rather than defined vacation and sick time can also have a positive impact in keeping people at work. Individual’s who might otherwise abuse unscheduled sick time for personal leave no longer have a difference so they schedule their time.
Assess your disciplinary policies as they may be driving people to come to work sick, thereby spreading illnesses. While every company needs to set clear limitations for those would be abusers, some policies actually drive presenteeism costs up. Make sure your policies are reasonable to the employees as well as your business needs.
Educate and offer prevention services to your employees. One of the most popular programs is an annual flu shot to prevent the spread of flu. Programs don’t have to be expensive to have an impact, for example a simple 20 minute lunch and learn on hand washing may be the single most effective program you can offer.
Sometimes services are already available on your health benefits but need to be promoted so employees actually use them. For example, educate your employees about the availability of urgent and retail care within your health insurance plans. Employees may come to work sick because, “I can’t get in to see my doctor”. Urgent and retail centers do not require appointments, may be open after working hours and are much less expensive than an emergency room. Of the nearly 100 million emergency room visits a year, between 60 and 80% are for non-emergencies that could be handled in an urgent or even retail healthcare setting. Urgent and retail care centers can benefit the employee and the employer.
For larger employers, having your own on-site health facility may make sense. Depending upon what you are spending on insurance for employees and dependents, employers who average 1000 employees or more may find bringing urgent care to a central site both extremely beneficial to the employees and cost effective for the organization. On-site programs vary from strictly primary care services to a combination of primary care, occupational medicine and disease prevention and management.
In response to our client’s interests in promoting employee health at an affordable rate, OHS-COMPCARE offers both on-site clinical facilities and access to urgent care. We have 30 years experience in developing and managing on-site medical departments uniquely designed to the employer’s specific interests. Our parent company has also opened Adult Quick Care providing urgent care for adolescents 14 and older. We have also expanded to retail medicine with Quick Care serving all ages 18 months an older. Please see below for the addresses and openings. We would be happy to provide informational brochures for you and your employees. We also offer preventive screening programs and lunch and learns all designed to help you guide your employees to being healthy, wiser healthcare consumers and more productive employees.
Adult Quick Care now has 2 locations to better serve your needs with plans to open 4 more facilities in the near future.
Now Open
1650 Broadway, Kansas City MO 64108 816-559-6320
Hours of Operation: Monday-Friday 8am - 5pm
&
Opened Summer 2008
19000 E. Eastland Center Court, Independence MO 64055 816-373-9200
Hours of Operation: Monday - Friday 8am - 10pm
To learn more about Adult Quick Care please call 816-559-6320 or visit www.adultquickcare.com.
***In addition, Adult Quick Care has opened a convenience care facility in Raymore, MO:
Quick Care
(Conveniently located in Cosentino's Price Chopper next to the pharmacy)
900 West Foxwood Drive, Raymore MO 64083 816-322-3521
Hours of Operation: 9am - 7pm Monday-Friday & 11am - 5pm Saturday
Quick Care offers the same quality care you expect from Adult Quick Care with a few differences:
o Quality care for ages 18 months and older
o Quality care by emergency room trained board certified Nurse Practitioners with oversight provided by a collaborating physician
Quick Care offers all the services of a typical convenience care facility plus minor injury care including minor laceration repair.
To learn more about Quick Care please call 816-322-3521 or visit www.quickcaremidwest.com.
*Please feel free to forward this information to any member of management in your company who would benefit from it.*
To view the Tip of the Week in Spanish please visit our Tip of the Week library at http://www.ohscompcare.com/totw/. Please allow a few days for the current Tip of the Week to be translated and placed in to the library.
To learn more about
services OHS-COMPCARE has to offer, contact our Client Services
Team at (816) 561-2105 option 1 or by e-mail at customerservice@ohscompcare.com. You can also visit us at www.ohscompcare.com.
Why choose us? Because OHS-COMPCARE has a physician on call 24/7/365 days a year to respond to our client's needs.
OHS-COMPCARE has seven (7) area clinical facilities:
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Independence Clinical Facility |
Johnson County Clinical Facility |
St. Joseph Clinical Facility |
Grandview Clinical Facility |
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19000 E. Eastland Center Crt, St. 200 |
10415 Lackman Road |
904 Edmond Street |
13830 S Us Highway 71 |
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Independence, MO 64055 |
Lenexa, KS 66219 |
St. Joseph, MO 64501 |
Grandview, MO 64030 |
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816-478-9299 |
913-495-9905 |
816-233-7702 |
816-761-4664 |
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After Hours Available |
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KCMO/Broadway Clinical Facility |
KCMO/Front Street Clinical Facility |
Wyandotte County Clinical Facility |
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1650 Broadway |
6501 East Commerce, Suite 110 |
1333 Meadowlark Lane, Suite 200 |
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Kansas City, MO 64108 |
Kansas City, MO 64120 |
Kansas City, KS 66102 |
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816-842-2020 |
816-483-5550 |
913-596-2774 |
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