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Simplify absence management case processes

The UK’s escalating long-term sickness crisis, with 2.8 million economically inactive due to chronic illness, and imminent Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) reforms, demand urgent organisational action. Proactive updates to sickness absence policies and investments in self-service management tools are critical to mitigating financial and operational risks. Key benefits of transforming processes include:

Cost savings: UK absence costs £103 billion annually (People Management). Managing it proactively can save an organisation up to £1 million;
Increased productivity: Reducing absence improves employee experience and boosts overall productivity;
Empower managers: Training helps managers confidently manage absenteeism, improving engagement and reducing disruptions.

Delayed action risks escalating costs, compliance gaps, and workforce disengagement. By addressing these challenges now, organisations can build resilience, retain talent, and maintain productivity in an evolving regulatory landscape.

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Addressing absenteeism with proactive solutions

Proven HR technology to reduce absenteeism

empower® streamlines absence management with intelligent automation, triggering real-time alerts, tracking cases end-to-end, and generating actionable reports. Managers gain a clear, centralised view of attendance cases, enabling faster decisions, fewer disruptions, and higher productivity across the board.

Measurable reduction in absence rates and costs

With expert insights and absence trend analysis, empower® helps HR teams uncover the root causes of cultural issues, strengthen organisational health, and bridge manager capability gaps, leading to a more engaged, resilient workforce and measurable improvements in performance and retention.

Proactive wellbeing support for your workforce

empower® detects early warning signs in absence patterns that may indicate underlying mental health issues. With tailored alerts and data-driven recommendations, HR can deliver timely interventions, like counseling or personalised support, leading to healthier, happier, and more resilient teams.

Data-driven HR insights refine absence policies

By surfacing long-term trends and health-related absence data, empower® helps HR refine policies, adjust workloads, and better support return-to-work processes. With powerful insights at your fingertips, your team can act fast, communicate clearly, and deliver consistent support where it’s needed most.

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Outsourcing to AdviserPlus has been a key enabler for HR transformation, achieving efficiencies and driving change.

Business Services Director, United Utilities, United Utilities

Proactively manage absence with empower®

The empower® case management system simplifies absence management with automation, customisable guided workflows, and self-service tools, enabling managers to address short and long-term absences proactively through automated action triggers.

Integration with third-party HR providers ensures consistency, while real-time data and predictive analytics help reduce absenteeism and forecast HR needs. This centralised service delivery is ideal for large enterprises with large workforces to reduce absence rates.

empower by AdviserPlus sickness absence management

Absence policy and compliance support

Our HR experts helps shape absence policies tailored to your organisations brand tone of voice. We collaborate with our legal division to ensure policies are compliant with evolving regulations, like SSP from day one. We also offer a HR Advice Line to coach managers through absence cases.

We provide tools to empower people managers to track absence cases, document policies, and maintain strong audit trails for compliance with UK employment law. This reduces legal risk and and ensures consistent handling of absence cases.

Free up HR capacity for data-driven strategies

Automation reduces time spent on manual tasks like absence tracking and paperwork, allowing HR to focus on data-driven strategies. Streamlined workflows automate notifications and record updates, ensuring efficiency and accuracy.

Managers can self-serve absence cases with guided workflows, further reducing HR’s admin workload. With digital case management and real-time dashboards, HR can track absence trends and insights, enabling more informed decision-making. This frees up time to focus on strategic initiatives like employee engagement, retention, and workforce planning.

See how empower® can help reduce absenteeism

Streamline case management, and provide data-driven insights to improve absence rates across your organisation

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Frequently asked questions

Reducing sickness absence starts with strong employee relations case management. When absence cases are tracked consistently, with clear documentation and follow-up actions, HR can spot patterns, apply policies fairly, and line managers can intervene proactively. A good ER case management system like empower® ensures:

Absences are addressed promptly and consistently across teams.
Trends (e.g., repeated absences, stress-related leave) are flagged for action.
Managers are guided through structured return-to-work processes and compliance steps.

This structured approach reduces the risk of prolonged or unsupported absences and helps drive accountability, fairness, and support across the business.

Line managers are your front line in absence management — but they need structure, support, and confidence. empower® ER case management tools equip managers with the structure and confidence they need to provide the right support at the right time, including:

Guided workflows for handling absence conversations and documentation.
Access to historical case data (e.g., past absences, accommodations made).
Prompts to escalate cases that may require HR or legal involvement.

This support ensures consistent, compliant action — reducing the risk of missteps, grievances, or presenteeism, and improving outcomes for both the employee and the business.

Flexible working can reduce sickness absence — but only when integrated with proper policy support and ER oversight. empower® can:

Track flexible work arrangements granted as part of absence accommodations.
Document adjustments made to support a phased return or health condition.
Ensure consistency across departments, avoiding claims of unfair treatment.

From an ER lens, this is about fair, transparent, and well-recorded decisions that support employee wellbeing while protecting the business from risk.

Just some of the organisations we support