Anticipating the upcoming bank holiday, employees may be considering taking an extra day off to elongate the three day weekend.
30% of UK firms report ‘illegitimate absence’ as one of the top reasons for short term employee absence in manual workers, and 23% in non-manual workers.
However, an employee pulling a ‘sickie’ leaves employers in the lurch, amounting to an estimated £100 billion a year impact on the British economy.
In 2015, UK businesses lost 6.9 days per employee, costing employers an average of £554 per employee per year according to research by the CIPD.
UK employees missed a total of 131 million days due to absenteeism last year, other reasons for absences included minor illnesses, musculoskeletal injuries, back pain and stress.
Findings confirmed that companies with flexible working arrangements are significantly less likely to include non-genuine absences in their top five causes of short-term absence with only 24% reporting it as a main cause compared to 35% of companies that don’t use flexible working.
Oli Johnson, Co-Founder of Catapult, an on-demand hiring platform, comments: “The scale of the UK’s absenteeism problem is simply staggering. British firms are currently losing nearly a week’s worth of productivity from employees and this is having a detrimental effect on their bottom lines. SMEs are most affected by this problem due to much smaller workforces, they are simply not able to absorb the impact of an absent member of staff.
“As the UK enters the summer period, its absenteeism problem is only likely to be exacerbated, especially with standout sporting events like Euro 2016 and the Olympics which will further compound the problem of non-genuine employee absences."
