Absenteeism in the workplace has been a pretty big issue in recent years and the general consensus seems to have been among UK businesses that too many days are lost to sickness, whether real or imagined. However, recent research put together by researchers from Wolverhampton Business School indicates that, when compared with out European counterparts, the UK actually has a considerably less sick day-driven culture. The results of the research show an improvement on several years ago, with only one in 10 firms affected by particularly high levels of absenteeism among employees in 2009 in the UK, as compared to 17% five years before.
The progress made by the UK workforce in reducing the number of sick days taken every year means that the rate is now less than half that of countries such as France and Germany. This was the conclusion of the research carried out by staff at Wolverhampton Business School who surveyed 2,600 companies across three European countries. The research was constructed as a single question focused on whether or not the company had high rates of absenteeism, to which the manager being interviewed would answer a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ In figures for 2009, some 25% of German companies responded that they suffered high rates of employee absenteeism and in France the number was 21%.
Whilst experts have estimated that employee absenteeism costs the UK around £30 billion every year, the results of this research indicate that countries like France and Germany are losing even more money. In general, the real cost to a business of staff absenteeism tends to appear as a drop in productivity or production, as well as the knock on effect that staff regularly being absent can have on workflow continuity and on the attitudes of other members of the team. Given that rates of absenteeism in the UK have fallen fairly noticeably in the past five years, what is it that has driven this commitment to the workplace?
Undoubtedly, the recession has had something to do with it, as well as the fact that there is much more comprehensive sick pay and employment protection in both France and Germany than there is in the UK. The researchers who conducted the project highlighted the obvious fact that those employees who feel safe in their jobs, and who will still be remunerated should they have to take a day, or more, off sick are much more likely to end up taking sick days than those who don’t have the same level of job security or whose pay would suffer if they were to go on sick leave.
However, these insecurity-generating conditions are not the only reasons that the research found for the difference in approaches in the three countries. In addition to lower sick pay or no job security, a more consistent workload and staff profit sharing in the UK were thought to help keep absenteeism levels down, as well as a positive working environment that was supportive and friendly. The research showed that these upbeat factors had a very encouraging influence on staff absenteeism wherever the company was based in the world – something to think about for any businesses currently struggling with high levels of employee sick days.