16 000 employees
KS and NAV work closely together to reduce sick leave across Norway’s municipalities through the national IA-agreement (roughly translated to “inclusive working life”). The target for the fourth period of the initiative, 2014-2018, was a 20% reduction in sick leave within the municipal sector. While Norwegian Industry has managed to cut absence rates dramatically over the same period, the municipal sector saw sick leave increase by 15% instead. KS and NAV, both public administration organisations, reached out to Specifique to develop a new, more targeted approach.
One in ten municipal employees was absent from work on any given day. The decision was made to focus efforts on 25 municipalities that had consistently recorded sick leave above 10%, with particularly high rates in childcare and healthcare services. Bringing that number down for good would require every single leader and employee to take ownership of the issue in their own workplace.
Working closely with KS and NAV, we developed a learning programme built around two goals: to strengthen leaders’ skills in mastery-oriented leadership, and to build genuine ownership and accountability among employees. The approach was rooted in proactively preventing absence rather than waiting to take action until it occurred. We developed dialogue tools, films, and extensive background material to support the initiative. The first phase focused on embedding the approach among leaders in the selected municipalities. The programme was then rolled out to all employees, using internally trained facilitators.
Over the course of 2017 and 2018, more than 50 workshops were held across municipalities in Norway, including Halden, Fredrikstad, Sarpsborg, Askim, Stange, Elverum, Kongsvinger, Lillehammer, Gjøvik, and Tønsberg. Specifique facilitated the majority of the sessions for leaders, who in addition to being participants were trained as facilitators themselves, enabling them to carry out the initiative in their respective departments.
More than 2000 leaders took part in the workshops, and around 16 000 employees subsequently took part in local sessions in their own workplaces. Feedback reports show very positive feedback and an average rating of 5.2 out of 6 for the initiative.
Sick leave rates presented at the IA experience conference in January 2018 showed a decline across most of the target municipalities, with the chief municipal executive crediting much of the improvement to this initiative. The impact was great enough that the programme was expanded and made available to every municipality in Norway from 2018 onwards.
