Even though Christmas is a time of celebration, it can be a difficult time for many. Rehab4Addiction have put together this useful infographic about the scale of negative mental health issues faced by some people in the UK during this time of year. Read the infographoc for some tips on how to cope better this […]

28 calendar days is a common definition of long-term absence. There’s nothing wrong with this definition in itself. However, waiting 4 weeks to offer support or consider referral to support services is a missed opportunity. This often means that medical appointments don’t take place until the 6th or 7th week of the absence. It also […]

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 […]

Absence costs are made up of a lot of parts you may not have considered. The direct costs are perhaps more obvious, but are you aware of everything that makes up the indirect cost of absence?

A good absence policy sets out acceptable levels of absence and guides managers to review absence patterns early on. It should also provide a clear guide for follow-up actions. When more serious consequences should follow from a poor attendance record. Quite often the first meeting or referral is not the end of the story. The […]

The most common mistake we see in absence policies is unnecessary complexity. Honeydew’s mission is to make good absence management easy. In this article, we’ll go through the do’s and don’ts of writing absence policies. We will explain how to write a policy that is an effective tool for line managers.

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 […]

Engage SaaS (Service as a Software) lets companies accurately manage and track their absence data. Even SMEs with fewer than 250 employees benefit from using Engage and can reduce related costs and risk by recording full absence data. Did you know that reducing absence by even a fraction of a percent can save you hundreds […]

From the desk of Honeydew Director of Product, Inka Howorth: I began my work in the absence management sector in 2008. That’s a lot of years of HR discourse and I’ve met a lot of practitioners of all kinds in that time. I’ve also encountered many approaches to writing an absence policy. This puts me […]

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 […]