25 Feb 2016

How to keep your employees smiling with dental absences prevention

When you think of employee absences the first things that usually spring to mind are illness, family responsibilities or stress. However, oral health problems are another important factor that can result in employees needing to take time off work.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development have calculated that the average cost of missing a day’s work in the UK is £80.20 per person. With an estimated 415,000 people missing at least a day of work each year due to oral health problems according to the British Dental Health Foundation survey, 2013, that’s a cost of over £33.2 million to UK businesses, per annum.

So how can you limit the number of employee absences due to oral health problems?

One way of doing this is to raise awareness and encourage your employees to think about their dental health on a day-to-day basis:

put up posters in your break room
stock sugar free chewing gum in the vending machine
get involved with national events such as Mouth Cancer Action Month in November and World Smile Day on 7 October
keep details of the nearest dental clinics on hand in case of emergencies.
if company updates are shared via email or an online portal be sure to utilise these to make sure your oral health messages are heard
provide dental care as part of your employment package

What the research says

56% of large companies offer a dental plan to employees, according to the Denplan Corporate Decisions Makers Survey 2016 and 60% of employees who do not currently have access to a dental plan from their work, believe them to be a tangible, usable employee benefit according to the YouGov/Denplan Employee Survey 2016.

You want to be able to offer your employees a set of benefits that are appropriate and helpful to them. Given that 77% of UK adults visit the dentist on a regular basis according to a consumer survey we also ran this year in conjunction with YouGov, dental care may be relevant to the majority and can provide a knock-on benefit to your business in terms of helping to keep your employees toothache free.

Regular dental check-ups and hygiene treatment can help identify existing oral health problems such as dental caries (tooth decay) and periodontal disease (gum disease), limit the onset of any new conditions and maintain healthy teeth and gums. By taking a proactive approach to dental care it’s possible to effectively identify changes before they become a problem, reducing unnecessary days off.

In Denplan's recent consumer survey, when asking adults that do not visit the dentist at least once every two years why they don't do so, the second top answer was because they couldn’t afford to go. Dental benefits can help employees with the cost of their dental treatment and can ease their concerns about this.

By showing that you care about their individual health and wellbeing and giving them access to a benefit that can be regularly used, your employees are sure to appreciate that your company is going the extra mile to look out for them.

Enabling easy access to preventive dental treatment and oral health advice encourages your employees to take more responsibility for their oral health; benefitting both them and ultimately your business in the long term by helping to reduce absenteeism in the workplace due to dental related illnesses. All of which, in turn, should serve to reduce overall sickness absence and potentially increase productivity and profitability in the company.

This article was provided by Denplan.