Northern Schools Trust – a pro-active approach to absence management
Northern Schools Trust has 4 Schools and 350 staff.
During the regular monthly payroll operations meeting, the trust declared a priority from the MAT Action Plan to improve sickness absence rates across the trust.
In dialogue with the trust, the Neo People Management team developed and deployed an absence project that:
- Adapted the employee portal to ensure employees could see any absence recorded for them
- Deployed manager self-service with absence reporting made live to ensure managers had the information to manage
- Created workflow emails to match the trusts policies to inform of approaching absence triggers and allow for pro-active absence management
- Made Bradford Scoring Factor data and visuals available to managers to identify difficult to identify absence patterns
- Created absence reports for the school’s leaders that became standard management tools and measures
- Trained school leaders on the use of the various absence management tools deployed
The project was designed and delivered within one term and had an immediate positive effect in reducing staff absence.
"We work with Neo People Management because as a small MAT, the Trust board and I need the input and support of an outstanding and very experienced team of HR professionals."