Socially responsible initiatives of companies

The 2008 annual report on the social responsibility of Danish enterprises by the Danish National Centre for Social Research shows that the current low unemployment rate leads employers to place the emphasis on preventing absenteeism, retaining employees and include older workers in the workforce. Policies aim to encourage long-term absentees back to work and promote competence development. Such policies are used differently by public and private enterprises and by company size.

About the study

In February 2008, the Danish National Centre for Social Research (Socialforskningsinstituttet, SFI) published its annual report on the Social responsibility of Danish enterprises (in Danish, 9.89Mb PDF). The study is based on interviews and structured questionnaires completed by the human resources department in more than 2,000 public and private sector enterprises. It focuses on the prevention of absenteeism, retention of current employees and inclusion of older workers in the workforce.

The survey sample comprised a total of 4,959 enterprises which were chosen from the Experians KOB database of Danish workplaces. The sample was designed to contain a certain number of private and public sector, as well as large and small companies, which were chosen randomly. In total, 2,556 enterprises participated in the survey, representing a response rate of 52%. The questions are structured in batteries with four or five response categories.

The report presents interesting findings from a Danish perspective, since the unemployment level is historically low, amounting to 3.4% in the first quarter of 2008. Some elements of the report focus on policies to retain working parents at work and those relating to older workers, sickness absence and competence development for less qualified workers.

Policies promoting employment and employability

Keeping parents in employment

Policies to retain working parents at work are used by 43% of all enterprises surveyed. According to sector, the public sector leads in this regard with an employment rate of 52% among parents, compared with only 41% in the private sector. The survey questionnaire points to two policies aiming to improve work-life balance for parents. These relate to the leave from work in the case of illness of employees’ children and parental leave for fathers. Overall, 87% of all public and private enterprises respect the right of parents to be absent from work on the first day of their child’s illness.

In Denmark, parents are permitted to take a ‘care day’ on the first day of a child’s illness. After the birth of a child, the mother has a right to 14 weeks’ maternity leave and the father can take two weeks’ paternal leave. Apart from this leave entitlement, the parents also have a right to share an additional 32 weeks of parental leave. The proportion of private companies which make provisions for parental leave for fathers amounts to 71%, while this is the case in 87% of public sector enterprises. These figures suggest that fathers are not prevented from taking parental leave; however, only about 25% of them avail of this opportunity. On average, fathers take eight weeks’ parental leave.

Employment of older workers

Policies promoting the employment of older workers are used in 33% of the enterprises surveyed. For instance, about 58% of public enterprises have adopted such policies, compared with only 27% of private enterprises. In general, about 66% of employers cite competence development as the main initiative taken to retain older workers at the workplace, but this is mainly the case in the public sector. A number of other initiatives have been introduced by employers to retain older staff in employment – 50% of enterprises have introduced flexible working hours, while 42% have offered older workers less demanding tasks. On the other hand, 33% of employers have offered older workers more demanding tasks as an incentive to stay at work, which implies that some older workers prefer more advanced tasks rather than a ‘phased out’ approach to employment.

Reducing sickness absence

In the public sector, 89% of the enterprises have implemented policies to reduce the level of sickness absence, whereas this is the case in only 66% of private enterprises. On average, 70% of all companies have introduced such policies. The two most commonly used measures by employers include a change of working conditions (83% of enterprises) and regular meetings concerning the position of the employee (85%). Differences emerge between the tools used by public and private sector employers to help workers on long-term sick leave to return to work. In public sector enterprises, counselling services (94% of enterprises), deeming a worker partly fit to return to work (87%) and regular meetings concerning an employee’s position (91%) are more frequently used tools than in the private sector (65%, 70% and 83%, respectively). A higher proportion of private companies (47%) prefer to offer workers financial support to receive medical treatment in the case of illness than public enterprises (39%).

Competence development of less qualified employees

Technological development, for example, can often require further vocational training of workers, a transfer to another position within a company, dismissal or a change of assignment. In this regard, the study reveals differences between companies with fewer or more than 50 employees.