HR Managers or Occupational Health Clinicians are usually the first people within an organisation to enquire about Sano’s OH Physiotherapy services as these professionals experience the day-to-day headaches relating to musculo-skeletal disorders (MSD’s) in the workplace. They also understand the value that an Occupational Health Physiotherapy Service will add to an organisation and are keen to commence a pilot to demonstrate the benefits of such a service to key stakeholders.
In most cases, Sano will create a bespoke proposal outlining the benefits of our services to all stakeholders that will need to be signed off by the Senior Leadership Team for approval and budgeting. Sano then collates data during a short pilot to demonstrate the value our services add to every different department and feed this back to all departments.
Different stakeholders and members of a Senior Management team often have their own priorities and might not be keen to add another service to their current budget, however, we can demonstrate that our services should be viewed as a way of saving money rather than an additional expense (we can demonstrate an 8-fold ROI for the services we deliver) and has both quantifiable and intangible benefits.
Below we have highlighted the benefits of an OH Physiotherapy service to each department in an organisation:
The Employee will benefit from rapid access to high quality, experienced Physiotherapists providing work-related assessment, treatment and advice. We assess most employees referred to our services within 5 days of symptom onset, which will be a minimum of 10-times quicker than they are likely to get an NHS physiotherapy appointment.
A course of physiotherapy helps to improve an employee’s physical health which in turn should help their attendance, improve job security and minimise worry and anxiety about their health and work. Unfortunately, we are all getting older and implementing an onsite OH physiotherapy service is a fantastic way to support an ageing workforce.
The HR Team will see multiple benefits from the Service; the obvious being a decrease in sickness absence rates. Other advantages often include a reduction in management time and decrease in costly staff turnover (staff churn). The Physiotherapy service is often seen as an intangible benefit of working for the company and provides HR professionals with an independent medical opinion to help make informed decisions relating to employees with MSK issues.
The Operations Team will naturally benefit from reduced sickness absence and presenteeism meaning they have increased chance of their regular workforce and employees performing their usual roles to increase productivity and achieve operational targets. This service assists Operations Managers to develop phased return to work programs to help employees safely and effectively re-integrate into work after a period of musculoskeletal sickness absence, which will again drive operational efficiencies.
The Health & Safety Team also benefit from a physiotherapy service as it will empower employees to be less reliant on medication needed to manage their physical conditions during work. It is likely that a workforce in better physical health that is less dependent on taking strong medication to manage physical symptoms will reduce the number of accidents at work.
A rapid access physiotherapy service will also reduce the length of MSD-related sickness absence due to an accident at work which can subsequently decrease the cost of litigation and insurance.
The Finance Team will see both short and long-term benefits of an OH physiotherapy service. Our onsite physiotherapy services can demonstrate an immediate 8-fold return on investment (ROI) for businesses as we can demonstrate significant reductions in sickness absence within just 2 months of an Onsite Physiotherapy service commencing. The beauty of our services is that there is no initial financial outlay to see results in the future as tangible benefits are delivered from day 1, so it is almost like turning on a new revenue stream from a financial perspective.
Reduced sickness absence also means less overtime, agency cover and recruitment and management costs among several other intangible benefits. Longer term there will be a demonstrable reduction in time off work due to accidents at work and a knock-on reduction in potential costs of litigation and insurance.
There are also tax incentives for companies providing Occupational Health physiotherapy services within the workplace adding additional financial value.
The Union appreciate several aspects of our physiotherapy services in the workplace as their members can access assessment and treatment far quicker than through the NHS. They understand that physiotherapy is helping improve the physical health of employees and subsequently their quality of life meaning that this service is viewed as a staff benefit that can have an important positive influence on job security and prospects by helping avoid or reduce sickness absence.
In more complicated disciplinary cases, our physiotherapists have been acknowledged for providing independent medical opinion and potential solutions demonstrating that the intangible benefits of the services we offer are of huge importance to Unions and employees alike.