Vocational rehabilitation: The business case for retaining ... - RNIB

Case study 3
This case study is based upon a person with a fluctuating mental health condition
working for a top 50 technology company based in Northern Ireland. It should be noted
that this is for an IT post that carries significant investment in training and induction
and in the event of failure to retain an employee – recruitment costs. There would also
be a significant loss of skills from the workforce.
Costs
Annual salary £27,000
Employers National Insurance (12.2%)*
Allocated overheads as a percentage of salary*
Direct costs relating to redundancy £18,693
Medical retirement pension costs*
Wasted investment in training £7,500
Impact on health premiums*
Productivity loss during sickness 0.04
Productivity loss during training replacement 0.58
Training charges £600
Direct costs of recruiting £5,257
Total direct costs including pension
£32,050
payments
*Not applicable in this case study
Northern Ireland recruitment can be more costly due to different legislation.
The case study illustrates that with sufficient co-operation between the employer and
the employee people with a fluctuating medical condition may also be beneficiaries of
the policy and deliver savings to their employer.
What is the extent of the regulatory burden for business?
The experience of organisations such as Lloyds TSB who have voluntarily implemented
an employment retention policy is that there is no difference between the performance
of disabled staff and their able bodied counterparts. The experience of the Republic
of Ireland where there is an Employment Retention Grant Scheme is that demand
from staff exercising the right would be easily managed by HR departments. The CBI
views the policy as being definitely good practice (CBI, 2000). In addition the CBI are
expecting that many of their members will adopt it and they would encourage others to
do so.
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