Under UK law, employees can self-certificate for the first 7 days of a sickness absence. After 7 calendar days they need to get a fit note from a doctor. The 1-week rule applies to everyone, regardless of how many days per week they normally work. The fit note is essentially a legal document that entitles the employee to statutory sick pay. Continue reading
Category Archives: About Engage
Data exporting made easy with APIs
Engage helps employers keep complete absence records but it is not enough to have your Absence Data stored in Engage. You should be able to use your data to help with scheduling, payroll etc. Therefore, we are always working to improve the data flows to other HR applications. We don’t believe that your absence data should not be locked inside one system. Continue reading
SMS to absentees
If you subscribe to Honeydew’s Day-1 absence reporting service, Engage can send SMS reminders to absentees whose expected return date was today. These reminders are sent if the absence record has accidentally been left open. Now we’ve also added a further feature to the SMS reminders that will remind tomorrow’s returning employees to confirm their return. The message goes out the day before the planned return. If you are coming back to work as planned, you can simply reply with the word CLOSE to confirm their return. If you are still absent, you’re asked to call the absence line to update their record. Continue reading
Stop overpayments of sick pay
More often than you maybe realise, communication breaks down somewhere along the line between reporting an absence and updating sick pay records. Many companies rely on cumbersome, manual processes to notify payroll about which absences are paid and which are not. Continue reading
73% find Engage easy to use
The latest Honeydew Customer Satisfaction survey closed at the end of March. Engage software received an overall score of 4 out of 5. Out of the 203 respondents, 73% find Engage “easy” to use. Continue reading
Automate your absence policy
Many HR teams spend a lot of time putting together a comprehensive absence policy. Sadly, their efforts are watered-down if managers don’t know or understand the policy, or if they forget to check what absences meet the trigger criteria. However, some absence triggers are so complex that you definitely need a computer to check who trips them. Working with spreadsheets is the worst enemy of a sophisticated absence management process. Never fear, Engage is here to help and automate your absence policy.
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Creating absence management tasks manually
Engage is normally configured to alert managers to events that trip company triggers. Often, these events should result in a review meeting, welfare call or potentially a referral to Occupational Health. These tasks are then logged in Engage to keep a complete record and receive reminders for anything that is still outstanding. As an additional option, managers can now choose to create a task manually, too. Continue reading
When do you expect to return to work?
A key part of capturing full absence data is knowing when the employee thinks they might be able to return to work. Engage absence registration forms have always had a date input field for the estimated return. However, a lot of absentees struggle to provide an estimated date because their situation can be very changeable day-to-day. Absence alerts remind employees to update their records wherever possible.
Managing complex absence triggers easily
Does your organisation have fiendishly complex absence triggers and policies? Do you need to juggle a combination of different terms and conditions for different staff members? Does the policy change based on length of service? Do you want to track pro-rata allowances for part-time employees? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, Engage can help you manage the data.
Should I choose Admin-led or Nurse-led Day-1 Absence Reporting?
Absence is a management issue, not a medical one. That is why similar organisations with similar work profiles can have very different absence levels. The difference is not that the employees in one company are more ill. The difference is that one company is managing absence better than the other one.
Any absence is a cost to the employer, regardless what the line of work or sick pay policies. And if absence is not measured, it can’t be managed. Therefore, experts recommend absences should be recorded before they become a problem. However, if you’re looking for a solution to turn around a culture of poor attendance, it is never too late to start.