2017 - ‘National Sickie Day’ and what we can do about it

It’s that time of the year again; the post-Christmas and New Year blues have hit, the bills have started rolling in revealing just how much we actually spent and any hope we had of catching a glimmer of the sun is taken away from us by being stuck back in the office again.
It might not come as a shock to you then, that the first Monday in February has become ‘National Sickie Day’. ELAS, who first coined the phrase back in 2011, have discovered that year-on-year this is the most popular day for employees to ‘throw a sickie’.

But what affect does this have on the UK economy?

Last year the Department for Work and Pensions revealed that more than 130 million days a year are lost due to sickness absence, with ACAS calculating that this has an annual cost to the UK economy of approximately £17 billion. This is because whether it’s employers having to pay enhanced sick pay or overtime to other employees to cover the work of their absent colleague, or the loyal employees becoming disheartened by the fact they feel like they are working twice as hard to cover for someone else’s slack, it seems to always end up having a knock-on effect somewhere else down the line.

What can employers do?

The first thing employers need to do is make sure they have an effective absence management strategy. This involves making sure clear rules are set out regarding how and who employees should notify if they are going to be absent, as well as what disciplinary action will be taken against employees who take time off work without an acceptable reason or without providing the proper notification.

It is then important to ensure that a consistent and accurate record of all absences is kept, detailing the employee, date, length of absence, reason for absence, who they notified and how. In line with this, it is good practice to conduct return-to-work interviews as early as possible once the employee is back. As well as being useful for obtaining the aforementioned information for your company records, these interviews are useful for discouraging employees from throwing ‘sickies’, either through fear of being detected or them seeing it as ‘too much hassle’. By conducting these interviews it will also allow for any genuine health concerns or issues in their professional or personal lives to be discussed, meaning these can then be addressed appropriately. For example it may be that they are struggling with workloads or shift patterns, causing them to take time off to recover. By taking the time out to discuss these issues you could explore solutions that would benefit not only the employee personally but the team as a whole through increased efficiency.

Trust and respect are key

Regardless of the size of the business, trust and respect are essential requirements to have between management and employees. Together they will form the base of a strong working relationship which encourages loyalty from employees and therefore a good attendance level. This will prove more important than any system you can put in place.

At Su Allen HR we can help employers by providing a range of HR support that includes advice on how to handle ‘live’ absence issues or writing an attendance management policy, to ensure fairness and consistency in all aspects of managing employees.

Contact us on 01582 883 299 or email su@suallen.co.uk to find out more.