Absenteeism prevention; this is how Hunkemöller tackles it

Two years ago, Hunkemöller set course towards a new absenteeism and vitality policy; from a curative to a preventive approach to absenteeism. Britta Hall, employability advisor at Hunkemöller, works closely with paraDIGMA groep: "The choice of paraDIGMA groep is in line with the new path Hunkemöller has taken: aimed at directing and discussing behavior and more focus on sustainable employability and prevention of absenteeism."

Understanding absenteeism

Britta: "In order to get a grip on absenteeism, I first started mapping it out. To do this, I differentiated into age groups and described the life stages that employees within that age group tend to be in. What might be going on in someone's life? Transition, informal care for one of the parents, or the birth and first months of a child. Then we examined where the biggest dropout is, and thus which group needs the most attention at this time. We started to look more and more at the individual in each category, and thanks to these insights, we can implement preventive measures much faster.

Focus on prevention along with paraDIGMA groep

I saw that the older age groups in particular were more likely to fall into absenteeism, both physical and also mental absenteeism. In cooperation with paraDIGMA groep , we focus not only on absenteeism but also on prevention. The Labor & Health Advisors of De Arbodienst support managers in recognizing signals so that the manager can discuss them. This places part of the responsibility on the manager. If necessary, the manager can indicate to HR when support or coaching is required.

We have to reach the people who will benefit from it, and make sure they dare to cross the threshold to use it. The biggest hurdle is to make it accessible. Now that we can slowly lower that threshold, more and more people are using it. And if a colleague does it and has a good experience, others are more likely to dare. We have noticed that it helps that the consultants also think along with us about a suitable offer.

What to do until retirement?

A great example of the collaboration was the pilot of The Time Machine by Puls, the label within paraDIGMA groep that offers expertise on track 2 coaching, career coaching and reintegration. Director of Optios, Sabien Coenen, came to Hunkemöller for an introduction. Then it immediately fell together; Hunkemöller was eager to help the older employee stay out of absenteeism. Sabien indicated that she was working on the development of a game; The Time Machine. This 'serious game' answers the question "What to do until retirement?" and offers the opportunity to get the practically trained target group to think about the upcoming working years in a playful way. How does someone make it to retirement vital and happy? This age group is easily overlooked, but we think we can achieve a lot if we offer this group of employees the right preventive guidance.

'Just keep working' ... Until you can't anymore

Store work is physical work; lifting, standing, walking around. This is different for everyone. We don't know until they dare to speak out, and often we don't know until someone drops out. That group, unfortunately, waits too long; it is the generation of "just get on with it. They are often afraid of losing their jobs if they share that they have (incipient) physical complaints. It can also be exciting and confronting; "Maybe I can't handle my job, which I've been doing for 20 years, and then what?".

Our absenteeism trend went down significantly in 2021, at a time when it was going up nationally. This is due to a combination between manager and cooperation in this with paraDIGMA groep, which allows us to be closer to absenteeism and work on prevention. And now we are working with more preventive initiatives. We see that the person who would normally drop out now still manages to maintain balance.

Start with the Wellbeing Conversations

We encourage, with support from specialists at paraDIGMA groep, that team leaders in stores not only have conversations with those already in absenteeism, but also engage in conversations to prevent absenteeism.

We are starting a pilot with so-called 'Wellbeing Conversations' in thirty stores. If we see that this is picked up well, I hope to roll it out to all 175 stores. It is great that we pay attention to this and that there are tools for this. Via OffCourse we will also start training store managers in the area of frequent absence interviews.

Collaboration Hunkemöller and paraDIGMA groep

It is nice that paraDIGMA groep has a comprehensive service in the field of sustainable employability, absence prevention and vitality. The consultants know how to quickly bring in the right specialist, and the coordination between the various labels of paraDIGMA groep runs smoothly, which also speeds up the process. Our goal in the coming years is to focus even more on prevention, mental well-being and attention to the older age group and to look closely at the age phases.

The cooperation is very professional, and for example the operational meetings that we have with each other once every six weeks are followed up well. They help us think about trends and developments and what we can do to capitalize on them even more. This also results in customization; they look at what suits us as an organization."

Also getting started with absence prevention?

Is your organization also ready for a different approach to absenteeism? paraDIGMA groep holds up a mirror to organizations and stimulates employers, HR and management to look differently at people in organizations. Would you like to know what we can do for you? Please contact us.