Make cost savings by improving employee health and wellbeing
Improving health and wellbeing in rail is vital, but the wide-ranging nature of health and wellbeing can make it difficult for companies to know where to start. The health and wellbeing dashboard pilot project has been running for several years now, and even though it has not yet finished, its regular dashboard reports provide insights that help rail companies target their health and wellbeing activities in different areas.
The dashboard project has focused on collecting data in some key areas: days lost to sickness absence; health surveillance; drug and alcohol testing. It also uses the Health and Wellbeing Index (HWI) to understand the relative impact of different health and wellbeing issues. In addition, the dashboard analyses data in benchmarking groups: the industry average (based on the 20 companies participating in the pilot project), sector-specific averages (TOCs, infrastructure / supply chain), and, where possible, compared to UK averages from Office for National Statistics (ONS) data. Participating companies also receive analyses based on their own data. Producing multiple benchmarked analyses from a single dataset in this way increases the benefit to individual companies, and the rail industry as a whole.
There are three different types of insights the health and wellbeing dashboard project has provided. The first relates to the lost-time rate.
The rail industry average lost-time rate is 2.87% higher than the national ONS average, or 2.3x the national ONS average. Looking at individual sectors, The TOC sector average lost-time rate (6.79% from 2020–23) is 3.2x the national ONS average (or 4.66% higher), and the infrastructure/supply chain sector average lost-time rate (2.37% from 2020–23) is close to the national average of 2.13%. Comparing between rail sectors, the TOC average lost-time rate is 2.9x the infrastructure/supply chain rate (higher by 3%).
In addition to ranking days lost for the industry as a whole, the health and wellbeing dashboard has analysed the financial cost of this to companies in terms of average annual cost per employee. The rail industry’s average cost of sickness absence is £2,214 annually per employee, which is £709 more than the national average, assuming a similar day rate for sickness absence across other UK industries. For TOCs, the average cost is £3,048, and for infrastructure/supply chain, the average cost is £1,272.
These figures help make the business case for individual companies to provide effective health and wellbeing programmes to reduce sickness absence among employees. This is particularly important given that the largest category of responses for self-reported sickness absence remains ‘unknown/not specified’, and this could conceal potentially useful information. These analyses have also revealed the importance of employee mental health. In the October 2023 report mental health was the second most important cause of self-reported sickness absence, so this helps support actions to support employee mental health such as the Railway Mental Health Charter which now has 126 signatories.
A second important area where the health and wellbeing dashboard project has collected and analysed data is health surveillance. Companies are legally required to carry out health surveillance for employees working in high-risk situations, for instance those involving high levels of noise, vibration, fumes, dust, solvents, or biological agents. Although the project group is still discussing the interpretation of the data collected and analysed, it has already identified an important way some companies could improve their efficiency at collecting this data. Data submissions to date have shown that some companies carry out blanket health surveillance activities regardless of whether all employees require it or not. In addition to wasting time for both employees and those carrying out health surveillance, this approach may risk lack of compliance with general data protection regulations. To improve this, companies should carry out health surveillance activities in relation to specific tasks that require it, remembering that when an employee changes role there will need to be a risk assessment to check the need for health surveillance in the new role.
Data and analyses from the health and wellbeing dashboard also help companies decide how to prioritise expenditure on different health and wellbeing areas. For instance, although musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) are an important category of self-reported sickness absence, the third largest category in October 2023, use of the Health and Wellbeing Index (HWI) provides a more rounded picture. A count of one HWI is similar to one fatality in terms of the effects on the business and society, and this reveals that MSD may have less overall impact than mental health, which is consistent with self-reported sickness absence. This underscores the importance of new activities to support mental health in rail such as the Railway Mental Health Charter, without lessening the impact of MSD on individual employees.
These different types of analyses show that although the pilot health and wellbeing dashboard project does not involve the whole industry, it still provides actionable insights for all rail companies.
