[article]The cost of taking a "sickie" or "duvet day"

mike65

Absenteeism in Irish workplaces is estimated to cost businesses about E1.5bn a year, according to a survey from employers' lobby group IBEC.

The report, published today, claims that 14 million workdays are lost due to absence: that's 7.8 days per person employed.

Launching IBEC's Guide to Managing Absence, IBEC director Brian Geoghegan said, "Absence is a serious social and economic issue. Besides its obvious impact on particular workplaces, absence affects the wider economy through loss of potential output and the increased spend on social security."


"Whilst not all absence can be eliminated there is significant room for improvement where absence rates are high, or even at average levels. The IBEC guide will assist employers as it sets out ways of measuring, recording and managing short and long-term absences," he added.

IBEC's survey of 557 organisations, highlighted the importance of a corporate absence management policy by which absence is recorded, return to work interviews are conducted in managing short-term absence and occupational health professionals are involved in managing long-term absence.

According to Geoghegan, the survey revealed that companies can no longer afford to tolerate such high levels of absence.

The average absence rate is 3.4pc but almost a third of companies have an absence rate of 4pc or more. Absence rates are higher in manufacturing at 4.4pc than in the services sector at 2.5pc.

Absence rates are highest in large companies: 4.6pc for those employing more than 250; 3.7pc for those with 50-249 employees and 2.4pc for companies with less than 50 staff.

The main cause of short-term absence for both males and females is minor illness. However, almost a quarter of the organisations surveyed stated that many male absences were not due to genuine ill health.

Some 12pc of companies cited alcohol and alcohol related illness as being a cause of short-term absence for males, while the figure is 4pc for females.

Interesting enough stats, now listen to David Begg of ICTU getting lightly toasted as he tries to pour cold water on the report.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/1004/newsatone/news1pm1a.smil

Listen for the unspoken suggestion that Irish absenteeism is acceptable cos others in EU are worse. Hello David, wake up! We're in competition with China and India not the Germans.

Mike.

seamus

The main cause of short-term absence for both males and females is minor illness. However, almost a quarter of the organisations surveyed stated that many male absences were not due to genuine ill health.

So what are they saying? That men lie more, or women are hypochondriacs? Perhaps employers like to mark down "Can't get out of bed because I'm on the rag" as a genuine illness. (I'm not going any further into that can of worms).

I've only taken 3 sick days in the last 4 years. And only one of them was a duvet day. And it was Sunday.

I'd be more inclined to think that the figure is pushed up by people who are serial absenters, and the average isn't representative of the actual amount of people who are absent. Everyone knows the type. Takes two Mondays off every month. The odd Friday too if it's a nice day.

I'd also tend to think that the worst offenders are middle management as opposed to the grunts or the owners. Just from personal experience.

pete

The main cause of short-term absence for both males and females is minor illness. However, almost a quarter of the organisations surveyed stated that many male absences were not due to genuine ill health.

Some 12pc of companies cited alcohol and alcohol related illness as being a cause of short-term absence for males, while the figure is 4pc for females.

And where are they getting this information from? Are they sending their staff for medicals to check their stories? I'd be surprised if this "study" was based on anything more scientific than some middle management type going "sure everyone knows that piss head is a dosser"



From today's Irish Independent:

Last night, IBEC economic chief Brian Geoghegan said that, despite the estimated €1.5bn cost of absenteeism, the situation in Ireland had greatly improved over the last 12 years, adding that most absences from work were sickness-related.

He admitted that the IBEC survey's costs data of absences was only provided by 55 companies out of 557 polled but said that the estimate of about €6m every working day was in line with experiences in Britain.

So for the purposes of this "study", IBEC can extrapolate a figure of 14 million days lost from data returned by 55 companies? Great. It gets interesting when you apply the 12% and 4% figures quoted above - what's 12% of 55, then? What's 4%?

Yeah, this looks dead scientific alright.

Borzoi

From the IBEC web site:

Some 40% of short-term absence occurs around the weekend.

Funny that Monday and Friday represent 40% of the working days
Funnier too is that there's a Dilbert cartoon that says the same thing

RainyDay

Oi Borzoi - That's my line!

seamus

Borzoi wrote:

Funny that Monday and Friday represent 40% of the working days
Funnier too is that there's a Dilbert cartoon that says the same thing

LOL. At least we know their figures are accurate!

Borzoi

RainyDay wrote:

Oi Borzoi - That's my line!

Indeed we are both unique - I would have posted on this sooner, but I was trying to find the original cartoon, but the Dilbert site isn't flexible.

I have to say the radio announcement on an otherwise horrible Monday morning made me laugh

Trojan

http://www.bfmartin.ca/finder/index.jsp - was 18 apr 1996, but I didn't find an archive covering that.

eth0_

The company I work for have gotten very strict on sick days. If you're off three days in the YEAR (not three consecutive days), you need to start giving them a doctors note for each day you take off sick after this time.

Is this even legal? Any other company i've worked for only required a note if you're off work for three consecutive days.

damien

A company does not have to pay for any of your sick days unless it is in your contract as far as I know. So whatever your contract states about sick days is what they have to provide.

As for sick day abuses, since our new boss took over, sick days have gone way up now even after they changed the contract so we are entitled to 3 sick days per year when it used to be 5. The boss publically accused "some employees" of using sick days like they were holidays. The fact that he asked HR to ring our doctors to verify that our sick notes were genuine didn't help things at all, so much that nowif someone wants to pull a sickie they don't take a day off anymore they take 3-5 days as the bosses view is you can't really be sick for just a day.

It's backfired on him bigtime. There are some employees here who may have been genuinely out sick for 2 days before but now have to pay for a doctors note so they decide to get value for money and get the doctor to give them a week off.

shoegirl

damien.m wrote:

It's backfired on him bigtime. There are some employees here who may have been genuinely out sick for 2 days before but now have to pay for a doctors note so they decide to get value for money and get the doctor to give them a week off.

As a colleague I'd agree, bigtime, but the difference I think is that doctors ALWAYS give you a couple of days extra, so requiring a sick note for every single illness after 3 sick days per year is massively increasingly the extra unrequired days. Naturally if your doctor gives you 2 more days than you need, you'll take it.

It would have made far more sense to explore reasons for absenteeism and address them directly. Many companies, for example, offer free flu jabs to employees - this one last offered them in 2002 at a cost of 15 per jab when my doctor was doing it for 10 euro. No wonder they have such a problem!

eth0_

shoegirl wrote:

Many companies, for example, offer free flu jabs to employees - this one last offered them in 2002 at a cost of 15 per jab when my doctor was doing it for 10 euro. No wonder they have such a problem!

Yes that's 10 euro on top of the 40-50 euro 'consultation fee' doctors charge every time you see them!

Sleepy

In fairness, I take the odd one (maybe 2-3 a year) but I reckon it's fair enough seeing as I'm underpaid in the first place...

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/Full_Story/did-sgMfRwEyVgm5c.asp

While IBEC claimed workers called in sick on an average 7.8 days each year, costing employers 14 million working days, Mr Begg quoted research published last month in an EU-wide journal on workplace health that said Ireland had the second-lowest sick day rate in the EU.

IBEC had surveyed over 500 organisations and found that 40% of short-term absences were recorded on either side of weekends.

ROFL

The voluntary scheme, which is being piloted in 25 Tesco stores in Britain, gives employees an extra three days leave if they take no sick days. Other staff have been offered up to €120 in vouchers in return for perfect attendance, while the company has also docked pay from some staff who call in sick. Tesco said it was too early to comment on the success of the scheme.

I can't find an online link but AFAIAA Tesco's plan to not pay/dock pay people for sick days has resulted in only 7% less of them. Not really a huge drop when you consider the costs to low paid workers. Have to agree with people that paying for a visit to a Doctor for every sick day could have negative impact €45 or whatever is a lot if you are on low income (esp when you pay income tax) so the temptation is to not go to the Doctor unless you can get more than a day off.

shoegirl

I think employers are increasingly seeing absenteeism as a cost and trying to reduce it, rather than getting to the root of the issues. The scenario that Damien.m pointed out is typical - employers are trying to blame and penalise employees instead of seeking ways to improve, for example, health levels and morale. The real danger here is that incerasingly, sick employees are going to work ill rather than taking a pay cut and spreading their viruses and infections around the workplace. This is hardly an ideal scenario as somebody who is genuinely ill is going to be unproductive at best, and in GMP manufacturing scenarios, a real danger to good practice if hygeine is critical on the site.