Tracking absences and sick pay for South Eastern Railway:
Client: South Eastern Railway
Industry: Transport
Employees: Over 4500 people working across 180 stations
Business: Train operator carrying more than 400,000 passengers a day
Their challenge:
South Eastern Railway’s HR and payroll teams were really struggling to process the multiple fit notes and return to work forms that were being sent to them each day from staff across their 4500-strong workforce. Backlogs meant delays in updating sick pay, which then generated more work for the payroll team dealing with queries from staff whose pay hadn’t been amended. They needed a way to better manage incoming forms, share sensitive medical information compliantly, and ensure pay updates could be made promptly.
“Netdocs listened to our issue and created a new process for us that really works.
It’s freed up so much time - we’re now able to concentrate on improving other areas.”
How we helped:
The HR team were already using HR:Safe as their document hub, so we adapted an area of this to deal with absence reporting. We set up a dedicated email address for all absence forms, which comes to us instead of the teams who were overloaded. Each day we capture the absence data we receive and ensure this is assigned to the relevant employee record. Sick pay updates are then automatically presented to a workflow within HR:Safe, which payroll staff can easily view and use to update their payroll system.
And now…?
The redirection of absence reporting to us using HR:Safe has lifted a huge amount of work off the payroll team’s shoulders. Instead of being overwhelmed with admin, they can now access a clearer list of sick pay updates and process them in a fraction of the time. Information can be shared across the payroll and HR teams, ticking the necessary compliance boxes and providing much more day-to-day control. Everything is more reliable and joined up, giving HR the ability to quickly find individual absence records, as well as gain a useful overall picture of the general health of the workforce.
We’re good at collaboration:
We happily integrate with, or work alongside, your line of business solutions to make sure everything flows well.