Sickness Down As Council Improves
ENCOURAGING healthy lifestyles and a dedication to improving services for residents has helped Chorley Council reduce its sickness absence saving £250,000 in lost days.
The authority, which is one of the best performing in the country, revealed the latest figures which show that sickness absence has fallen yet again.
Compared to the sickness figures in 2001/02 the number of days lost has been slashed by more than half down from 16 per year per employee to just over 6.5 days.
Leader of Chorley Council, Councillor Peter Goldsworthy, said: "The dramatic decrease is thanks to everyone at the council and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives that have helped create a healthy workforce.
"Tackling sickness absence has been one of our priorities because we believe a happy workforce is a healthy workforce.
"By helping people to stay in work and by making sure that they enjoy their work it means they will provide even better services to the residents of Chorley."
Just four years ago Chorley Council was losing more than ten days per person and six years ago it was more than 12 days per person. The reduction in days lost has saved Chorley more than £250,000 since 2005/06.
This figure means Chorley Council is among the best performing councils in the country, much better than many other public sector organisations and on a par with the private sector figures, which are traditionally lower.
"Not only has our sickness record improved, the services we provide are excellent and our staff say that Chorley Council is a great place to work," said Coun Peter Goldsworthy.
"Happy and healthy staff are better staff and our success in recent years goes to prove it."
Chief Executive Donna Hall said: "I'm proud of all the staff that work at Chorley Council and more than half them have not had any time off sick in the last year.
"A reduction in sickness levels is a sign of good morale and means more time and effort can be put into improving frontline services."
Improvements brought in to tackle absence include return to work interviews, health checks, a pedometer challenge and help for people to quit smoking.
