GoodShape is using AI to reduce absence and support employee health
A machine learning solution to reduce costs and boost productivity
Can machine learning help companies reduce lost time due to sickness absence?
Most of us have experienced being out of action and off work with an illness or injury. It can be worrying, but for those whose employers provide health and wellbeing services, knowing extra support is available to get back on track can at least provide peace of mind.
In the UK employers spend over £1.5 billion annually on support services and over £6 billion on insured benefits. But according to health management platform GoodShape reactive services alone may not deliver the benefits employers are hoping for.
Instead, GoodShape recommends a data-driven approach to create a detailed picture of needs and trends, enabling employers to deliver support in a smarter way. Sometimes, by preventing health-related absences in the first place.
For its clients, which include FTSE 100 companies, public transport logistic operators and NHS trusts, the approach is paying off. The service, on average, reduces absence by 30% in the first year with a return on investment for employers of 5:1.
Recognising that data might hold the key to a new source of insight for clients, the GoodShape team asked Deloitte to advise on a machine-learning solution. The ambition? Unlocking value in its business by providing a deeper understanding of workforce health and wellbeing and its impact.
A workforce in good shape is one of the keys to a thriving business
So it’s important for employers to have an accurate picture of their company’s current and future needs.
The difficulty, according to Ed Radkiewicz, CEO of MARCOL Health, which has invested in GoodShape, is that health and wellbeing needs can be incredibly difficult to measure and manage. Companies that want to improve their response often don’t know how.
To help, GoodShape brings together a company’s absence-reporting processes, support services and health-related intelligence into one platform. When an employee logs an absence on an app, it’s a gateway to support. Automatically they’re guided on a personalised journey and offered the support they can access, depending on need, ranging from digital self-care programmes to specialist services.
For employers, analytic and management tools integrate with their existing systems and show what’s happening in their own company in terms of absences logged and help provided. It allows them to make data-led decisions on what support is needed in future.
Wanting to offer its clients deeper insight, the GoodShape team sought Deloitte’s advice on whether its health-related data could be used for machine learning. Could it, for example, be anonymised and used to forecast the likely duration of an absence with accuracy, to support effective workplace planning?
“For any company exploring ways to enhance its business with AI, having the right infrastructure is a vital step,” says Dimitri Tsopanakos, a partner at Deloitte. “An important part of this project was assessing and advising on GoodShape’s technology, in the context of how it could best support data modelling.”
“Productivity, sickness absence and employee health are closely linked. The key is to have access to accurate real-time data and a seamless process to maximise the value between them.”
Ed Radkiewicz, CEO MARCOL Health, investor in GoodShape
UK companies’ annual spend on health services
UK companies’ annual spend on insured benefits
Number of the UK workforce absent at least every year
Estimated annual cost of employee absences to British industry
Knowing your health and wellbeing needs
A benefit of GoodShape’s data-driven approach is that it enables employers to see and measure subtle shifts in patterns of behaviour among their people, so they can spot health and wellbeing issues as they arise and even predict them.
“It means employers, through our service, can offer proactive as well as reactive help,” says GoodShape’s chief product officer, James Arquette. “If a person is showing early signs of a long-term health issue that will result in prolonged absence from work, we can offer support early to shorten or even prevent that absence.”
Or, for example, at a team level, if high instances of muscular-skeletal complaints were logged, this could alert an employer to a problem it can address, to minimise the risk of it happening again.
“Our health-related data shows trends that no one else has uncovered before,” Ed continues, “and Deloitte immediately recognised its vast potential.”
The potential of data
Working together and sharing knowledge and skills along the way, Deloitte advised on how GoodShape’s anonymised data could be ‘trained’ to produce insights. In this case, to create AI models that can forecast the occurrence and length of absences, categorising them into short, medium and long-term durations.
“We also advised on implementing an end-to-end system that could be built on GoodShape’s platforms to deliver the service and communicate with its clients,” says Jorge Prado De Castro Alfaiate, an assistant director at Deloitte.
Another important part of the project was supporting the development of detailed ethics and governance procedures for use with the models. Procedures include, for example, requiring explicit consent, via an ‘opt-in’ function, for people’s data to be used as part of the models, and informing those who consent about how their data will be used.
Adding value
Now offering the tool as part of a premium service, the models are adding value to GoodShape’s business and many of their clients’ too.
Separate from an employer’s workforce policies and interactions with their people, they provide an extra tool in the toolbox to support effective workforce planning. Feedback shows that models forecasting the likely duration of an absence are accurate in 80% of cases.
Employers using the tools are measuring their impact, as part of their support and management ecosystem, to understand how business value can be unlocked, while enhancing their understanding of workforce health and wellbeing needs.
“GoodShape is largely about a data-led approach to empower organisations to support an employee community and managers at scale,” concludes Ed.
“From the employees’ perspective, when they log an absence, they are engaging at the point of issue, which is the ideal time to offer the support they need. So it’s turning what’s often a mundane process into an engagement opportunity.”
Get in touch
Dimi Tsopanakos
GenAI Lead for Investment & Wealth Management
dtsopanakos@deloitte.co.uk
+44 20 7007 7307
Jorge Prado de Castro Alfaiate
GenAI Subject Matter Expert
jpradodecastroalfaia@deloitte.co.uk
+44 20 7007 1214
