When Should You Book a Workplace Flu Clinic? (And Why Early Matters)

Workplace flu clinics are an important part of any organisation’s employee wellbeing programme. According to the CIPD, minor illnesses (like flu) are reported by 78% of employers to be the most common cause of short-term absence from work.

Considering the business cost that even just a few days of absence can create, workplace flu vaccinations for your staff could save your business a lot of money.

But when should you start thinking about a flu clinic? And when should you start looking to book? And when should the workplace flu clinic actually take place? These are all great questions, so we’ve set out to answer them as simply as possible for you below.

Why Timing Your Workplace Flu Vaccination Programme Matters

Getting the timing right for your workplace flu clinic is essential, as leaving it too late might mean that your staff are already exposed to the virus during peak season or, worse, don’t get a vaccine at all.

But what’s the risk of leaving your workplace flu clinic booking until the last minute? Or not booking it at all?

How Flu Season Affects UK Businesses

Recent data from the CIPD shows that UK sickness absence is at its highest rate in 15 years, at an average of 9.4 days per employee per year. Minor illnesses (including flu – though flu is much worse than a normal cold) make up the majority of absence reasons for a workplace. So, what would be the cost to your business if the flu spread through your workforce during the winter months? Could you afford to have everyone take almost two weeks off work?

The cost of sickness absence can have a huge effect on the workplace. For more insight, check out our free Wellbeing Return on Investment Calculator, which gives a breakdown of what your business could be losing by not investing in wellbeing initiatives like workplace flu clinics.

The Difference Between Colds and Flu

It’s easy to think of the flu as just a bad cold, but the flu can actually be quite a dangerous illness. The most clear-cut difference is that a cold will make you feel unwell, but you can usually carry on with your normal day-to-day life (like going to work). Flu, on the other hand, will leave you feeling exhausted and too unwell to carry on as normal.

Here’s a breakdown of the differences between a cold and the flu.

Signs and Symptoms	Cold	Flu
Symptom Onset	Appears gradually	Appears quickly, within a few hours
Fever	Rare	Usually lasts 3-4 days
Aches	Slight	Often severe
Chills	Uncommon	Common
Fatigue & Weakness	Sometimes	Common
Sneezing	Common	Somtimes
Chest & Cough	Mild to moderate, hacking cough	Common – can be severe
Stuffy Nose	Common	Sometimes
Sore Throat	Common	Sometimes
Headache	Rare	Common

The Cost of Leaving It Too Late

If you leave your workplace flu vaccines too late, simply put, you run the risk of your staff getting the flu – and all of the lovely symptoms that come with it, listed in the table above.

Flu is a serious illness – we vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable against it each year because it can take a huge toll on our health. But why run the risk with the rest of the population? If your staff aren’t fighting fit, they aren’t going to be operating at their best. They’ll feel worse for it, and your business will be worse off, too. Hosting a workplace flu clinic isn’t just the right thing to do – it makes good business sense and could save you money.

When Do Workplace Flu Clinics Typically Run?

The UK Flu Season Timeline

According to NICE, the UK flu season typically runs from December through to March, peaking in the winter months – similar to the vitamin D deficiency months.

This can go earlier or later, but is generally most prevalent during these months.

When Do Corporate Flu Vaccines Become Available Each Year?

UK flu vaccine providers – including pharmacies and other NHS providers, as well as private providers – generally have access to flu vaccines from mid- to late-September.

The reason vaccines become available during this period is that the flu virus evolves each year. This means that vaccine developers must alter and adapt the vaccines based on what’s happened with the virus in the southern hemisphere during their flu season (which is typically during our summer months).

When Should You Start Planning Your Workplace Flu Clinic?

There’s never a bad time to start planning an employee flu clinic – offering it to your staff in the first place is incredibly important. But there are definitely better times of the year to start planning than others.

The Ideal Time to Enquire About Corporate Flu Jabs

Here at New Leaf Health, we make our flu clinics available to book from around mid-May. This is when we find out when vaccines will be made available in the UK. So, generally speaking, May is a great time to start enquiring about workplace flu vaccinations.

That being said, we work with clients who like to get planning in January. We’ll provisionally pencil their dates in (based on our best guesses of vaccine availability), and give them first refusal on workplace flu clinics. In other words, you can enquire with us at any time, and we’ll get back to you – and the earlier you start planning, the better!

What Happens If You Book Too Late?

There are a couple of risks to booking your flu clinic too late. Primarily, these are:

• Reduced choice of clinic dates available.
• No clinics available at all.
• Staff have already started contracting the flu.

Unlike our other wellbeing events, flu clinics have a limited availability every year. If you leave it too late to book, you risk not being able to book a clinic at all.

Similarly, if you aren’t planning ahead and only start to think about booking a clinic during flu season, it’s likely that your staff will already have started contracting the flu. Once it’s in your workplace, it will begin to spread quickly, especially if your staff are prone to presenteeism.

Factors That Affect Your Booking Timeline

We know that prioritising your workplace wellbeing programme can be a challenge – the many curveballs can seem never-ending, not to mention the lack of hours in the day. So here are a couple of things to watch out for, as they could slow you down!

Number of Employees and Sites

If you have a lot of employees and different sites, you’ll need multiple clinics. This likely means more admin and logistics, so allowing plenty of time for the booking process (especially if you have to coordinate with managers at each site) is a good idea.

We have a great Operations Team here at New Leaf Health, so we’re always on hand to help. Plus, we ask all of the right questions to make sure nothing gets missed or forgotten.

Hybrid and Remote Workforces

With a remote workforce, you’re likely going to want to distribute flu vouchers to your employees, so this is usually quite straightforward. With a hybrid workforce, however, you might want to mix your approach, hosting on-site clinics with vouchers as well. Finding out how many people will want a voucher and who’s going to be on-site and when can be a challenge, so planning well in advance is always useful.

Preferred Clinic Dates and Nurse Availability

As we mentioned previously, availability does fill up fast given the vaccine launch window, as well as the number of vaccines that are made available in the UK. If you have a date where you absolutely must have a flu clinic (like a sales conference, for example), the earlier you can book it, the better.

Likewise, if your workplace is particularly remote, flu vaccine nurse availability could be limited in your area, so it’s better to get booked in on a date of your choice before a neighbour does!

How to Get Your Organisation Ready for a Workplace Flu Vaccination Clinic

You’ve read this far, so you know the best time to book your flu clinic (spoiler: the earlier the better). But how do you actually get the ball rolling?

Getting Buy-In from Leadership

Getting buy-in from leadership when it comes to booking workplace flu vaccines can be tricky. Flu vaccines cost money – why can’t employees just go and book a jab themselves? Well, here are a few key points you should raise when discussing with leadership:

• Employee spend most of their time at work: They’re not likely to get a flu vaccine if there are barriers in the way, like needing to book time off or go during the evening. Bringing the flu clinic to the workplace means they get to take a 10-minute break from their workstation to get it done – easy! So more staff are likely to get vaccinated than if you just told them to do it themselves.
• Flu costs UK businesses money: The majority of short-term absences in the workplace are due to illnesses like colds and flu. Despite what people may think, the flu is not just a bad cold – it’ll knock healthy adults off their feet for a couple of weeks. This means time off and lost productivity, costing your business money. You may have an idea of how absence costs your business already, but if you want to see some eye-opening figures, check out our free Wellbeing Return On Investment Calculator, which tells you how much money wellbeing interventions could save your business in just a few clicks.

Communicating the Programme to Staff

We know that driving engagement is one of the biggest challenges for HR and wellbeing leaders, and getting staff to attend a workplace flu clinic is no different. Which is why we try to make the process as easy as possible for you and your staff.

All of our workplace flu clinic bookings include free access to promotional posters and an online booking tool, allowing you to promote the clinic around your workplace, and then employees can simply scan a QR code to book their slot, and even get a reminder before their appointment – how easy is that?

What Information You’ll Need When You Enquire

When you enquire about booking a workplace flu clinic, it’s a good idea to have some key information on hand so you can get a quick and efficient quote. We can’t speak for other providers, but here at New Leaf Health, we ask you for:

• Your/business details
• What service you’re looking for (clinic, vouchers, or both)
• How many sites/staff you’re looking to cover
• Site details (no. of vaccines, postcode, preferred date)
• And any other relevant information you think we might need.

This may seem like a lot of information up front, but don’t worry – it helps get the ball rolling much quicker than a simple enquiry, and nothing’s set in stone.

Book Your Workplace Flu Clinic with New Leaf Health

There you have it, pretty much everything you need to know about the process of booking a workplace flu clinic with New Leaf Health. We like to make the process as easy and painless as possible for workplace health and wellbeing coordinators like you, which is why we like to do all of the heavy lifting – we’re the experts, after all!

If you’d like to find out more about our employee flu vaccine service, you can get in touch in a few different ways:

• Enquire via our flu clinics page (quickest and easiest way to get a quote).
• Fill out the form at the bottom of this article.
• Email enquiries@newleafhealth.co.uk.
• Call 01384 877 855.

Ready to get the ball rolling? We can’t wait to hear from you!