This week we are excited to announce that Susan Gee, Head of Occupational Health and Wellbeing at Yorkshire Water will be speaking at the 14th Annual Health@Work 
summit – to share how the company reduced sickness absence to just 2.59%.
Susan is a commerically astute, innovative and highly influential OHM with comprehensive experience gained within public and private sector roles. Currently a visiting lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, Susan is a regular speaker at Symposium conference – and always brings a humorous, passionate and candid look at the field of workplace health.
She will be presenting a talk on what Yorkshire Water have done to drive the workplace health agenda with a strategy that focuses on the prevention of injuries and illnesses and effective management of an employees’ return to work after a period of absence – good management coupled with emotional literacy. This approach has resulted in:
- Sickness absence reduced from 3.38% to 2.59% – saving circa £800k in 16 months.
- Strong working relationships between OH, HR, H&S, management and trade unions
- Robust policies and practices that support employee wellbeing
- Managers are much more accountable – but have greater support
- Greater compliance with legislative requirements
Susan is just one of many speakers at Health@Work 2017 – click here to see all speakers, topics and the most up to date programme.
Rebecca joined the HRreview editorial team in January 2016. After graduating from the University of Sheffield Hallam in 2013 with a BA in English Literature, Rebecca has spent five years working in print and online journalism in Manchester and London. In the past she has been part of the editorial teams at Sleeper and Dezeen and has founded her own arts collective.