ICAS provides employee assistance programmes to more than 350 corporate and public sector organisations within Southern Africa.
Organisations need to do an analysis of their leave patterns to identify:
- Their absenteeism rate;
- Who is taking unscheduled leave (according to department, salary band, gender, job grading, etc); and
- Patterns of leave (on what day of the week it starts, for how long it continues and so on).
Once an analysis has been done, says Mountany, steps can be taken to address the issues that emerge. Mountany says another useful tool is conducting interviews with all staff on their return from unscheduled leave. This can help identify underlying reasons for absence and provide assistance.
Most difficulties experienced by employees relate to personal relationships with partners, spouses and family members. This is followed closely by legal as well as financial concerns, with a significant number of worries about issues affecting their children and trauma emerging, she says.
Most of the people using ICAS services are women.
Financial difficulties are being identified increasingly as significant contributors not only to stress but also severe depression, which is often a driving factor in marital difficulties as well, Mountany says.
When there is low morale in a company, the reasons must be established, she says.
One possibility is communication: whether employees feel their voices are heard.
Gender issues can also play a role.
To achieve a healthy, happy workforce, managers can refer affected employees to the employee assistance programme to give them the opportunity to work through those circumstances that are affecting their attendance and work performance negatively, says Mountany.
These should not be seen as punitive measures, though.
The referrals have proved highly successful in resolving such difficulties, and have been found to improve attendance in many cases, she says.
Banking group ABSA says that a behavioural risk audit conducted with a total sample of 1.6% of its workforce showed that workplace and home stress were a reality in the lives of its employees. With this in mind, ABSA introduced an absenteeism-management programme for the first time this year as part of an integrated health and wellness programme.
"It can be expected that the cumulative effect of relatively high home and workplace stress may significantly affect the resilience of our workforce," says wellness group specialist Wezi Khoza.
She says a behavioural stress assessment by ABSA indicated a relatively high level of financial stress as experienced by the population in general.
So it is expected that staff with money problems and poor financial behaviour tend to reduce productivity and increase absenteeism rates.
By contrast, financially well-off employees report high levels of commitment to their work, lower absenteeism rates and greater pay satisfaction.
"Employees did indicate that financial assistance was one of the greater expressed needs."
Although there is no scientific evidence available to prove whether or not ABSA employees experience work-related stress, the company believes that as stress increases in people's lives, absenteeism will also increase. "Stress will always be part of the corporate arena, and will increase and decrease according to the impact that societal factors have on the population in general."
The individual's reaction to these stress factors will be determined by their resilience, Khoza says.
The integrated health and wellness programme's central focus is to assist employees to improve their resilience so that the impact of the everyday stressors is mitigated.
"Our programme has a holistic focus to address the individual."
Immediate counselling and rehabilitation services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, not only for employees but also for dependants of employees. The programme includes an array of externally and internally provided services covering assistance with financial, emotional, physical, intellectual, occupational and social needs.
ABSA determines the needs with an annual opinion survey and develops targeted action plans on the basis of the results.
Khoza says the best way for an organisation to boost employee morale is to demonstrate a caring attitude towards workers.
Vodacom chief human resources officer Lungi Ndlovu ascribes his company's low absenteeism rate to "a relatively informal working environment, where emphasis is placed on allowing employees to strike an optimal work-life balance".
As a competitive and results-driven company, Vodacom attracts "ambitious individuals who thrive under pressure."
The company also recognises that total remuneration has a direct effect on the morale and behaviour of individual employees and ultimately on its culture and performance.
Apart from laundry and dry-cleaning service available at its head office, an onsite "wellbeing centre" provides employees with services such as preventive primary healthcare. It has a nurse, doctor, dentist, dietician, hair salon and beauticians, medical services lifestyle programmes, gym facilities and a choice of personal trainers.
Employees can choose to sue the services of the onsite physiotherapist or wide variety of stress-relieving massage therapies available at the centre.
"The health and wellbeing of our employees are always at the forefront of Vodacom's human resources policies," says Ndlovu.
