How Regular Corporate Health Checks Can Reduce Employee Sick Days

Employee absence is a major problem for a business, regardless of its size or its standing in the marketplace, and furthermore, sickness absence is a rising problem in the UK. According to figures from the 2022 Britain’s Healthiest Workplace Survey, in 2022, there were 50.6 days lost per employee due to ill health. This was an increase from 23 days per employee in 2014. Presenteeism is also a problem for a business, in other words the concept of employees turning up for work even though they are ill, and not performing to the standards they should.

Sometimes employees feel pressurised to be present for work even when they feel ill, due to the prevailing workplace culture, and this is one element of the sickness absence problem that a business needs to manage. Another is the idea of introducing corporate health checks.

What are corporate health checks?

Employee health checks are a way of managing the health of your workforce in a uniform manner, by introducing a package of company-wide, mandatory on-site health checks. This helps to identify key health issues, monitor ongoing health issues and react to problems found. The employer can use these findings to manage employees going forward and this provides a much better visibility of the potential and capacity of employees in terms of both their physical and mental health.

How can sickness absence impact on a business?

The figures are already showing how sickness absence is having an increasing impact on businesses, but there are other more general impacts which are often harder to quantity. These include:

• Productivity – This impact will vary according to the business and the specific role of the individual employee, but the knock-on effect of absence can be very damaging in terms of the output of the individual, and the output of colleagues who are required to cover for them.
• Pressure and workplace stress – More work for other people covering for absent colleagues can mean added stress and ultimately an employee not feeling happy or comfortable in their position. This could lead to higher staff turnover.
• Recruitment costs – Hiring new people means time and money spent advertising, recruiting and training new employees.
• Knowledge and expertise – All employees are unique and valuable, and the absence of any individual could have a major impact in terms of temporarily losing their knowledge and expertise. Furthermore, if an employee leaves the business as a direct or indirect result of sickness absence, this can be permanently damaging for the business.
• Long-term planning – High sickness absence rates and high staff turnover make it very hard for a business to plan for the future with any certainty. An unstable workforce and potentially a problem with long-term sickness, means you can’t work with reliable numbers for solid forward planning.
• Compliance – If the sickness absence policy of the business is managed badly, this could result in grievance and tribunal cases, which impact on the business legally.

The benefits of employee health checks and how they reduce employee sick days

On-site health checks can be introduced as a way of promoting preventive care for all employees, and it is important that these are presented as a corporate package, and not just an option for individual employees to take up. Making this a company-wide package improves inclusivity and makes people feel valued and cared for, and therefore this will improve morale, loyalty and hopefully productivity also. But importantly it will ultimately reduce employee sick days by:

• Enabling early detection of potential or developing health issues.
• Providing the employer with information to amend or tailor a job role according to identified health issues, making an employee’s daily routine more comfortable and productive going forward.
• Preventing identified health issues getting worse.
• Improving the overall health and wellbeing of the employee.

An employer can choose from a range of employee health checks such as well man and well woman health checks (tests specific to each gender), general health checks (blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol and blood glucose checks) and diabetes screening and prevention. The employer may also have identified a range of health issues which point to more specific blood tests being required, such as vitamins, thyroid, minerals, liver and kidney functioning, inflammation and hormones. The key is that a package offered by a professional provider of on-site health checks such as HealthClinic2You, is tailored to meet the needs of the business and its workforce.

Professional on-site health checks from HealthClinic2You

Our different packages of workplace health checks are designed to suit your individual needs as a business, but can be presented as a corporate package, so that:

• Employees feel valued and care for.
• You are promoting inclusivity.
• You improve your reputational profile as an employer in the eyes of customers, the public and potential recruits.
• You improve the overall health of your workforce and reduce your sickness absence rates.

Take a look at our range of on-site health checks at HealthClinic2You and get in touch to see what we can do for you.