Rise in sick days? Have employers noticed?

A contributing factor to this is how hard it is for people to see or speak to their GP, with appointments often booked weeks in advance. If you're unwell and unable to get medical care, then the only option is to take time off work.

There's been a surge of businesses taking out health insurance for employees this year, with even very small companies <5 people, getting cover.

While it's not a silver bullet and absence from work will still exist, giving your team access to things like a telephone GP and faster treatment services can reduce absenteeism and promote wellness in the workforce.

Yes, of course they have. People are being a lot more cautious about passing illnesses around, which is working wonders on the curse of "presenteeism".

Where people know they are unwell, but still feel capable of working without delaying recovery, those who are able to work from home will still do so. Companies that have demanded a return to only working from the office will not have benefitted from this arrangement, which is short-sightedness on their part.

Having an individual away for a brief spell prevents spreading illness to a wider group and allows that individual the opportunity to recover to their usual levels of productivity and efficiency faster.

Supportive, sensible workplaces understand and embrace this.

Our average sick leave has risen in the past year from 0.9 to 2.0 sick days per person. I think this is for a combination of factors. During covid, we were hermetically sealed in our homes, which meant less exposure to bugs, therefore fewer sick days.

Because we worked fully at home, there was probably more of a feeling to "work through" a minor bug rather than take time off to battle it. And as we are now back out in the world our immune systems are playing catch up, therefore there is more likelihood of an infection affecting us. There is also more awareness of wellbeing and the need to look after oneself if not right.

Our approach is to support staff when they are not feeling well, and to let them have the time needed to recover. As a service based business, healthy and happy staff leads to more productive work!

Whilst there was a good level of flexibility being exercised by employers in the two years following the initial COVID lockdowns, 2023 has seen many employers switch policies on remote and hybrid working, which has seen an increase in absences due to employees being unable to work from home. When coupled with COVID anxiety and challenging mental health, employees are therefore being given no choice but to take leave.

Anecdotally, more employees are taking sick days. We have seen a spike in stress and anxiety cases, likely impacted by factors outside of work as well as the work itself. Likewise, suspected ADHD cases are increasingly common. Employers generally take a sympathetic approach, but smaller businesses struggle to manage the impact on the business.

We have also seen increases in physical health absences, which, again anecdotally, we attribute to delays with diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.
As an employer, I now provide private healthcare as a benefit for my nine employees as mitigation for this.

I haven't really noticed a trend in sick days increasing, if anything they seem to be decreasing. With organisations adopting working from home, flexible and remote working, there is now less incentive to "pull a sickie".

Organisations are spending a lot of time and energy focusing on wellness initiatives and in particular paying attention to mental health, menopause and more recently neurodiversity, this is also playing a part in employees seeing fewer sick days.