With GP practices and pharmacies, like many other businesses, still under pressure from the knock-on effect of Covid-19, absence management technology can be an essential tool to help employers get on top of sick leave, reduce the cost of absences, and manage staff shortages.

A survey during the midst of the pandemic reported that staffing issues were a concern for 59% of GPs, with almost four in 10 reporting that the sick leave or self-isolation of clinical colleagues had impacted patient care. With GP practices and pharmacies continuing to be at the forefront since the pandemic began, it is still crucial that they have strong online systems for monitoring staff absence, to ensure they have adequate cover and can support the health and wellbeing of their staff.  

Absence management technology is rapidly replacing paper-based systems and transforming the management of absence, and it gives companies complete visibility over their workforce, enabling managers to track absence and spot any unusual trends such as someone having a lot of time off which may mean they are struggling. It prompts return to work interviews and enables managers to keep on top of staff rotas, spot staffing gaps and organise cover, ensuring a business can operate efficiently in any circumstance.

Our HR toolkits enable absence records to be added to the system to plan and record holidays, sickness and other absences. These can be reported on to show an employee’s absence records for a period and control holiday entitlement. Standard reason codes for absence can cover sickness, authorised / unauthorised, dependent, or compassionate leave or a scheduled appointment. Leave can be based on exact duration – not half or full days. A range of absence choices are available within the system – but customisation to suit your business needs can be easily achieved through your own system administrator.

Many medical establishments still rely on paper forms to record absence and staff holidays which can often be overcomplicated, with the information recorded often inaccurate. Having a web-based tool gives employers full and precise control of their own records. Using an absence management software system can reduce admin costs and improve a business’s processes and procedures, minimising the impact of staff absences on patients and freeing up resources to focus on patient care.

It also gives better visibility at an organisational and branch level so practice managers and pharmacy managers can manage staffing better and monitor and reduce sickness absence, giving them full visibility of staff activity and ultimately saving money in sickness absence.

Having recently acquired an HMRC accreditation on our identecoHR portal, we are also able to assist you with managing payroll. With our payroll output solution, all entered hours and shifts can be validated, amended, or deleted as required before locking for payroll processing. Users can be assigned hourly rates in order to calculate gross pay entitlements and additional allowances can be included for specific shifts.

For more information on how identeco HR toolkits could help your business manage absence, among the many other innovative HR solutions we offer, visit: www.identecohr.com