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Breaking down barriers to Equity & Inclusion: During sickness absence, help employers understand how Group Income Protection’s (GIP’s) vocational rehabilitation can help avoid feelings of exclusion, lack of hope and loneliness.
Dr Tarun Gupta, Chief Medical Officer, UK Protection, Legal & General Retail suggests that Vocational rehabilitation provides proactive support, with the potential to support equity and inclusion for all employees when long-term sick.
Illness should be considered a DEI matter. And by that, we don’t just mean those illnesses that may be defined as a ‘disability’ under the Equality Act 2010, we mean any illness where long-term absence represents a potential factor. In other words, early intervention needs to become the norm, rather than the exception. And it needs to be delivered by vocational rehabilitation professionals; clinicians focused on proactive, whole person, outcomes focused support. This, to help more back return to work, because work is good for health, in most cases.
Google ‘impact of sickness absence’ and chances are you’ll get a list of links taking you to information on the business and economic impacts; very few on the impact on individuals. That’s probably because of a focus, over recent years, on trying to evidence a causal link between employee wellbeing and business productivity.
Common sense dictates that such a link exists. But, with so many elements contributing to both employee wellbeing and business productivity, it’s a complex matter.
What is clear – or causal – is the increased risk of deterioration in mental wellbeing when someone is out of work. For example, loneliness is a well-known risk factor for anxiety and depression. Long-term sickness absence can increase that level of risk.
So, sickness absence undoubtedly has knock-on effects on business; directly in terms of absence and retention, and indirectly in terms of productivity.
Long-term sickness can become a downward spiral
What has all this got to do with equity and inclusion? In short, illness has the potential to take people out of work for longer than is necessary. And that means exclusion from all the wellbeing benefits that good work brings; physical, emotional, financial and social.
Of course, a period of absence is often needed for recovery. But, during recovery, if there’s no contact with that individual, or early support provided, the original medical condition can cease to represent the main problem. Instead, the problem becomes the psychological impact of prolonged absence – the fear of return and the unknown.
Evolution from reactive to proactive absence management
Long-term sickness absence has represented a quietly growing problem over many years. Traditional HR and Occupational Health policy and practice tends to take a reactive stance, waiting for the employee to make contact; if and when they feel ready to return to work.
But evidence shows that when an absence becomes long-term – 4 weeks or more – the chances of the employee’s return diminish rapidly. 1 in 5 will not return to work after just 4 weeks of absence.
Some even fall out of employment altogether. A record number of people in the UK – over 2.5 million – are currently economically inactive because of long-term sickness.
In short, long-term sickness absence, whether temporary or permanent, is not doing people or business any favours, as evidenced by the UK government currently focused on the matter, with plans to tackle the problem.
The odds are increasingly stacked against both the employer and employee the longer a situation is left unmanaged. Early intervention, via vocational rehabilitation – accessible to employers and employees as part of Group Income Protection (GIP) – is key to the chances of having a positive impact and the likelihood of achieving a return to work. And, importantly, a return to work that is sustainable.
Modern DEI strategy should look beyond the Equality Act 2010
Vocational rehabilitation, via GIP, represents a potential option if it appears that illness could become incapacitating over time. In such instances, the Equality Act 2010 (the Act) will be front of mind for HR professionals. This is because if the illness is defined as a ‘disability’ under the terms of the Act, employers are required to make reasonable adjustments.
In our view, however, supporting people with long-term illness to return to work is not only a legislative matter, but also a DEI matter.
As we consider in other articles in this Chief Medical Officer (CMO) report, DEI through an employee benefits lens has tended to focus on discrete services for discrete populations. Or, in this case of this article, discrete ‘disabilities’ under the Act.
Arguably though, any illness that leads to long-term absence should be considered a DEI matter, not just those that meet the definition of disability under the Act, noting that final decisions under this legislation are legal ones and rest with Employment Tribunals.
We take this view because anything that takes the individual out of good work, risks leading to feelings of exclusion, lack of hope and loneliness if that person isn’t receiving proactive support.
Vocational rehabilitation provides that proactive support, with the potential to support equity and inclusion for all employees when long-term sick.
The outcomes speak for themselves. For example, Legal & General GIP return to work data shows that every year, for the past four years, over 9 in 10 employees with a mental health claim were supported to be able to return to work within the deferred period of the GIP policy (the time between first going off sick and a claim becoming payable). And the same – over 9 in 10 – for returns to work within the first year of absence, where there’s a mental health claim.
In other words, there’s a clear-cut case for vocational rehabilitation to become the norm, rather than the exception.
Download the second edition of the Legal & General Group Protection Chief Medical Officer Report, to find out more about how Group Income Protection can help break down some of the barriers to equity and inclusion.