The Value of Absence Integration: Mapping Guardian’s five best practices to better outcomes

While it's easy for companies both large and small to get caught up in the ever-evolving landscape of compliance and state PFML (Paid Family and Medical Leave) laws, at the end of the day it’s important that employers not lose sight of the big picture — providing a better experience both for employees and the business.

Spring Consulting Group’s Teri Weber recently teamed up with Guardian’s Matthew Ceurvels and Rich Lombard for a webinar that explored some of Guardian’s latest research around absence management — including which activities organizations are doing well, where they have room to grow, and how adoption of absence management activities is evolving.

The five best practices

Findings from Guardian’s latest Absence Management Activity Index and Study reflect how advanced organizations are in their adoption of absence management best practices, which carry significant weight in determining whether a company can achieve goals and optimal outcomes around leave management.

Common challenges from the past two years

As demonstrated above, there's been notable progress around the advancement of best practices over the past decade. At the same time, there’s been a slight decrease in the overall Index score from 2020 to 2022 (5.6 to 5.4), which experts say is not entirely surprising given the competing priorities employers have been juggling over the past two years.

Particularly among smaller businesses, says Lombard, “you’ve got struggles with staffing, one or two folks wearing a lot of different hats in HR who are managing benefits, managing leave, managing everything. This can be difficult, especially as you add in some of these programs that they didn’t traditionally have to manage.”

Stepping into the employees’ — and employers’— shoes

Whether it’s giving employees a single contact by using the same resource for STD and FMLA, getting access to supplemental health benefits when they report an absence, or having the reporting infrastructure in place to support employers who are managing complex leave policies, employers who make investments in processes contribute to an improved experience for employees and employers alike.

"Employees don’t always necessarily understand, I need STD or I need FMLA. They know: I’m sick, my child is sick,” says Weber. Centralizing the intake process, for example, provides a kind of one-stop shop that enables an intake team to funnel these employees to where they need to go. “In addition, we put a lot of pressure on supervisors and HR; they’re the glue and tape holding absence together, and that’s not really their primary job.” Centralized processes support supervisors in making sure cases are managed correctly.

Return-to-work and return on investment

Weber additionally highlights the importance of return-to-work programs. “At the end of the day, while employers want to be kind and generous to their employees and have programs that are strong for attraction and retention, they also do need employees there doing the important work,” says Weber. So that return-to-work function cannot be overstated. That’s where a lot of the financial savings and return on investment can be.”

View the full webinar to learn more about how state leave laws are beginning to drive change, the challenges around creating a broad policy, how to manage equity across state lines, and the benefits of technology for self-service capabilities, reporting, and more. And look out for Guardian’s upcoming report, The Value of Leave Integration, to find out why the more integrated the leave management model, the better the outcomes achieved.