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Cost Of Absence |
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CIPD Employee Absence Survey - July 2004 |
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| This is a summary of the key points of the report. Should
you prefer to view the report in it's entirety, you can find it here |
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The average level of sickness absence among survey participants
is 4.0% or 9.1 working days per employee (based on a working year
of 228 days). |
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The figure is 0.1% higher than the 2003 survey average of 3.9%. |
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Public services organisations have the highest average level of
sickness absence at 4.7%, with the private services sector having
the lowest at 3.4%. |
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Almost two-thirds (61%) of absence is accounted for by spells of
fewer than five days. |
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Nearly four in ten (39%) respondents report a decrease in absence
levels over the previous year, compared to 31% reporting an increase. |
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Changes in the method of recording absence, changes in workforce
composition, tightened policies and changes to workload are reasons
for increased absence, while tightening policies for reviewing attendance
is a major influence on falling absence levels. |
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The most important cause of absence for both manual and non-manual
workers is minor illness, followed by stress for non-manual employees
and back pain for manual staff. |
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Back pain, musculo-skeletal injuries, acute medical conditions,
stress and mental ill health are the leading causes of long-term
absence for manual workers, while stress and mental ill health are
the leading causes for non-manual employees. |
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As many as 80% of employers collect information on the causes of
absence. |
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Stress is identified as an increasing cause of employee absence.
Over half (52%) of employers surveyed have experienced an increase
in workplace stress in the past year. |
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The survey shows that the majority of organisations are responding
to the problem, with more than threequarters of organisations (77%)
taking steps to identify and reduce stress-related absence. |
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The main causes of stress in the workplace are workload and management
style/relationships at work. |
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Difficulties in defining and identifying stress, increasing performance targets
and a lack of skills for dealing with stressed staff are identified as the
main obstacles to addressing workplace stress. |
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The survey asked employers’ opinions on proposals to transfer
the responsibility for issuing sick notes from GPs to occupational
health professionals. |
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In all, 93% of respondents believe sick notes are issued too easily but despite
this nearly two-thirds (60%) want GPs to continue to issue sick notes. |
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If the task is taken away from GPs, it should, in respondents’ views, be
administered by NHS specialised health centres or done by private-sectoror NHS-employed
occupational health professionals working with individual employers. |
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Almost a third of employers believe that more than 20% of absence
is not genuine. |
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A similar proportion of respondents think between 6% and 10% of
absence is not genuine. |
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A fifth of employers believe less than 5% of absence is not genuine. |
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Confidence in genuine absence is greater among
organisations with fewer than 100 staff. |
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The average reported cost of sickness absence is £588 per
employee per year, a rise of 3.7% on the CIPD’s 2003 survey. |
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More than 90% of participants consider sickness absence to be a
significant or very significant cost to the organisation, but only
46% monitor this cost. |
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Nearly nine in ten (87%) employers have a written absence management
policy and three-quarters (74%) of organisations have introduced
changes to their absence management policies or practices in the
past two years. |
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Return-to-work interviews are regarded as the most effective method
of managing short-term absence. |
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Involving occupational health professionals is seen as the most
effective tool for managing long-term absence. |
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Nearly nine in ten employers believe that it is possible to reduce
absence levels, although only 49% have set a target for this. |
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Almost two-thirds of public service organisations set targets, compared to 58%
of manufacturing and production employers and just 33% of private services
organisations. |
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The propensity to set targets for absence increases substantially
with workforce size. |
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The most common type of target (sought by 57%) is a reduction to
an absolute percentage of working time lost, with 40% having a 3%
target figure. |
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In all, 43% of organisations benchmark their absence rates, with
the public sector being the most likely to do so. |
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