35… million of days lost last year due to staff pulling ‘sickies’: FACT!
32… billion pounds absenteeism is costing British employees each year: FACT!
10…sick days per year taken by employees in the UK compared to 4.5 in Asia-Pacific: FACT!
Seeing the scale of the problem and trying to recover from the economic crisis you would think that all British businesses would have their own way of tacking this issue…
But do they really?
The Department of Work and Pensions has recently presented a report according to which more than a fifth of employers still do not have a system in place for recording sickness absence.
48% of all employers are believed to pay sick pay to some or all of their staff. Large employers (250+ employees) were most likely to provide the sickness pay allowance (88%) compared with 71% of medium employers and 47% of small employers.
Despite paying for the sick leave, two-thirds of employers have not taken any action to help employees with health problems stay in work or return to work. These could include allowing them to work different or reduced hours or organising meetings to discuss extra help needed to stay in or return to work.
Most of the respondents agreed that employers should be responsible for encouraging their employees to be physically and mentally healthy and that there is a link between work and employees’ health and well-being.
Eugene Farrell, key accounts manager at AXA PPP says:“Whilst it’s encouraging that the overwhelming majority of employers (88%) appreciate that they have a responsibility to encourage employees to be physically and mentally healthy, it is discouraging that only 57% were convinced that investing in this is worth the candle – testament to the continuing challenge to service providers to make a more compelling business case for their services.
She also added:”You really have to question the role of HR in these arguably remiss organisations for allowing them to get away with paying people not to work – especially when early intervention and effective treatment through the likes of talking therapies are so readily available.
In addition, she stressed that part of the issue is lack of investment in line managers’ training to enable them to mange employees’ psychological wellbeing effectively, with only one third of employers saying they provide line mangers with stress management training or support.
So where should your organisation start?
Measuring sickness absence is the first step to effectively tackle this issue at your workplace.
But it’s only a start.
Statistics can prove most things but the question is how much value your managers can get from the data provided. If your time and attendance system provides your managers only with an access to clocking in and out times without any other additional options on how to analyse the information and report on it, managing sickness can prove to be a challenging and time-consuming process.
If you ready to start tackling this issue seriously and cost-effectively download our guide on how to choose the right time and attendance system.
