How to Reduce Employee Absenteeism
5 February 2024
What are the absenteeism rates in your business like? Are you concerned? There are several causes of high absenteeism rates, and thankfully, there is much you can do to reduce them. During this blog, we'll explore the steps to take to measure employee absenteeism in your business, identify the potential causes, and give you nine actionable tips to reduce absenteeism.
Is Sickness Absence a Problem in the UK?
“In 2021, 149.3 million working days were lost to sickness in the UK - an average of 4.6 days off sick per employee.” Safe Workers
An estimated 185.6 million working days were lost because of sickness or injury in 2022 (ONS). You can take steps to support your employees’ health, but illness will strike, and there are always times when an employee cannot and should not be working. Still, we’re not just talking about sickness absence. Some of those early morning calls or emails aren’t down to illness at all.
In comparison, Germany reported an average of over 18 days per employee during the same period (Safe Workers). Whilst the cost to the economy is high, the UK has the fourth lowest average in Europe. You can take a lot away from these figures, especially considering that Germany is known for its productivity.
Presenteeism (working when unwell and unable to perform as usual) is increasing, suggesting that workers are heading to their desks when they’re ill instead of taking time to recover. Some blame this trend on the UK’s statuary sick pay, which, despite increasing in 2022, along with national living and minimum wages, is still one of the lowest in Europe.
National Sickie Day
National Sickie Day falls on the first Monday of every month. In 2020, around 600,000 workers called in sick on that one day, costing the UK economy almost £45 million in lost revenue! Figures suggested that on National Sickie Day 2024, 1.6 million UK employees called in sick. Compare that to the 2020 figure, and it doesn’t paint a great picture of the economy.
The National Sickie Day initiative has a different perspective, claiming that taking an extra day or two for ourselves is a good thing and that some employees use them for mental health reasons. The initiative suggests that by recognising and responding to their wellbeing needs, employees reduce the risk of further absences by giving themselves this one day to rest and recharge.
What is Absenteeism?
We’ve seen the financial impact that one day of calling in sick on mass can have on our economy. Still, when we talk about absenteeism, we’re not referring to the odd day here and there.
Time off for sickness, whether short or long-term, is explainable and understandable. Absenteeism is when an employee persistently takes time off work beyond what you’d consider reasonable. It suggests that the cause of employee absenteeism isn’t due to genuine illness, but other factors are at play.
How to Calculate Employee Absenteeism Rates
To determine whether absenteeism has become a problem, you need to crunch the numbers. Here’s how to calculate employee absenteeism rates per employee or across the whole business:
- Step One: Identify and determine the number of unplanned absences.
- Step Two: Specify a period and note the total number of working days during that time (there are approximately 260 working days in a year).
- Step Three: Divide the number of absences by the number of working days and times the value by 100.
Let’s use the 2023 per employee absenteeism average of 7.8 days: (7.8 / 260) x 100 = 3%. 4% and above is considered high, so in this scenario, you’d want to consider digging deeper where employees are absent for more than 10.5 days or more.
What Causes Employee Absenteeism?
When you understand what’s causing absenteeism, you take action to improve the situation. Absenteeism costs the UK economy billions of pounds annually, so the time and money you put into reducing it will yield a return.
Illness
We’ve determined that absenteeism is more than the odd sick day, but the reality is that long-term illness is on the rise. Mental ill health causes more long-term sickness than any physical illness.
Burnout
Burnout isn’t just born in the workplace; personal circumstances can contribute to it. Still, prolonged and excessive workplace stress is often at the top of the list of causes. As we explore in our guest blog, Reaching & Recovering from Burnout: Breaking the Stigma’, by Dr Keith Grimes.
Workplace Conflicts
Whether it’s bullying or a personality clash, people handle conflict differently. If an employee is struggling with a colleague, it can cause anxiety, and they may call in sick when, in truth, they’re trying to avoid interacting with someone.
Poor Managers
Like workplace conflicts, employees who struggle with a manager may claim they’re ill when they don’t want to be around them. Many employees blame poor managers as a reason for leaving a role.
Disengaged Employees
What is a disengaged employee? When it comes to employee engagement, there are three types to consider:
- Engaged Employees: People who are passionate and enthusiastic about your business and their role in supporting it.
- Unengaged Employees: People who come to work and do their job but don’t have feelings of loyalty or emotional commitment.
- Disengaged Employees: Someone who was once engaged but something has happened to change that, and they have become disengaged.
Not all disengaged employees are detractors. They may not speak or act negatively towards your business, but as we explore in our blog, ‘Re-engaging the Disengaged Employee,’ businesses with disengaged employees have 37% higher absenteeism rates.
Lack of Flexibility
Employees have the right to ask for flexible working; without it, you may see higher absenteeism rates. When employees have demands they can’t meet due to being unable to switch a few things around at work, they may ‘pull a sickie’ and take the whole day. Accommodating employees’ needs and circumstances benefits your people and business.
Caring Obligations
Employees with dependents, whether children or people they’re helping to support, may be more absent for multiple reasons. The first is down to flexibility - being unable to juggle caring demands with work. The second is that those caring obligations may take their toll on their mental and physical wellbeing, leading to genuine sickness absence.
Why is Employee Absenteeism Increasing?
As we share in our blog, ‘How to Promote Positive Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace,’ the average rate of absenteeism per employee per year has increased from 5.8 in 2019 to 7.8 in 2023.
This rise = increased financial loss at a time when the cost of doing business is already high. So, what exactly is causing the increase?
Declining Mental Wellbeing
What's causing the decline in mental health?
There are a few suspects, and at the top of the list are the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. With COVID still lingering, it makes sense that absenteeism would be higher since it’s a virus that affects people physically to varying degrees. So, why is the cost-of-living crisis also implicated?
The impact on our mental health - that’s why.
It’s likely that some of your employees aren't being honest with you. When they call in sick with a migraine, a bug or lingering flu, what many employees aren’t telling you is that they’re struggling with their mental health. Don’t be offended. In our blog, ‘An Employer's Guide to Mental Health at Work,’ we reveal that only 2% of employees feel confident discussing their mental health with their employer.
The pandemic negatively impacted our mental wellbeing, not least the fact that those who struggled with their mental health didn’t receive adequate support because of the restrictions. 1 in 5 adults did not seek support during the pandemic because they didn’t think their problem was severe enough (MIND).
A virus will leave your system after some time, often without medical intervention. That’s not the case with mental ill health. Mental ill-health will likely worsen, becoming more debilitating over time if left untreated. Worse still, poor mental health can negatively impact our physical and financial health, sending us into a downward spiral.
The Role of the Cost-of-Living Crisis on Declining Mental Health
The cost-of-living crisis has increased financial anxiety across the UK. In our blog, ‘How to Improve Employee Financial Resilience’, we share that employees experiencing money worries cost the UK economy £120 billion and 17.5 million lost work hours.
If you’re wondering why the National Sickie Day debate has taken us so deep into the topic of mental health, here are two reasons:
- The cost of mental health problems is equivalent to around 5% of the UK’s GDP, costing the UK economy at least £117.9 billion annually.
- 63% of long-term sickness absence (over four weeks) is due to mental ill-health - higher than any physical illness.
How to Reduce Employee Absenteeism
Having established the causes of employee absenteeism, let’s turn our attention to the solution.
1. Identify the Problem
Having measured your absenteeism rate, you’ll know if there’s a problem to improve. Next, you need to dig deeper to understand which of the many reasons we’ve covered are causing high employee absenteeism.
Here are some areas you could investigate:
- Performance and review records
- Conflicts or disciplinary measures
- Changes in personal circumstances
- Doctors’ notes (where applicable)
- Patterns within specific teams
- Engagement scores
- Workplace culture
- How effectively employee wellbeing is supported.
The above points link to areas known to impact the employee experience.
2. Improve Communication
This step is broad because communication covers many areas. It could be communication about the employee wellbeing benefits you’ve made available, better communication around business change, and ensuring leaders and managers are effective communicators. It also covers the need to ensure you’ve created a culture where employees can be open and honest.
3. Additional Training for Managers
Review your managers' soft and people skills to assess where they need improvement. Whether it’s support with conflict resolution, providing productive feedback, or motivating their teams, investing in creating well-rounded and capable people leaders will yield a return.
4. Flexibility
Flexibility is essential, and we don’t just mean flexible working practices written into a contractual agreement. Flexibility must become part of your culture to be impactful. Consider this… flexibility shows that you trust your employees. For example, when you don’t question a parent’s need to leave early for a child’s dentist appointment because you know they’ll make up the time. Showing your employees this trust and respect will boost employee engagement and lead to fewer absences.
5. Offer an Annual Leave Purchase Scheme
An Annual Leave Purchase Scheme allows employees to purchase more time off to enjoy the things that matter most. If they want more time off, they can buy it, which saves your business money instead of costing it.
6. Prioritise Mental Wellbeing
Whether you agree with the ethos behind National Sickie Day or not, your employees’ mental wellbeing should be a priority. The effects of the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis are impacting the Nation’s mental health. When left unchecked, unmanageable stress and anxiety lead to further mental and physical illness.
You can help prevent this. Give your employees a safe space and professional support with an Employee Assistance Programme. With BCAP-accredited counsellors at the swipe of a button, you can ensure your people have the help they need when they need it.
7. Boost Physical Wellbeing
Sometimes, your employees will be genuinely ill or need to see their GP. It’s unavoidable, but when you combine travel and waiting times, 41% of employees use half a working day to attend a GP appointment. You could help them arrange convenient, virtual GP appointments by offering them access to an Online GP service, reducing those lost hours.
You also help your employees maintain healthier lifestyles, reducing the risk of illness. Embed a Corporate Gym Membership or a Cycle to Work salary sacrifice scheme into your business, and you can help make exercise affordable again.
8. Support Financial Wellbeing
Alleviate money worries to reduce absenteeism. Help ease the burden of the cost of living by offering household support via an employee cashback card that could earn them up to 15% cashback when they use it to purchase their everyday essentials. Boost their salaries even further by embedding an employee discounts platform into your benefits package. Put the power to make meaningful savings in their hands, and you’ll be helping to ease the burden of their rising bills while preventing potential illness caused by financial anxiety.
9. Enhance Employee Engagement and Motivation
There are many reasons for disengagement, from a poor cultural fit to a lack of developmental opportunities. Once you discover the issue, you can turn the situation around.
Poor employee recognition is another contributing factor, but inclusive rewards can reignite passion and loyalty. Recognising achievement and rewarding success is proven to help repeat those behaviours, helping employees feel valued, motivated and engaged.
Your reward and recognition strategy can boost employee engagement and motivation when the proper drivers are in place. Incentivising your employees with financial rewards via an easily loadable employee recognition card or eVouchers are a few ways to achieve this.
The power of employee rewards is rooted in behavioural science, social psychology, and organisational theory, referring to an employer’s ability to influence behaviour and decisions through positive reinforcement and reward.
Here are some interesting stats:
- 50% of employees agree that receiving gratitude and recognition from management improves their relationships with company leaders (Eadion).
- 66% of employees would leave their roles if they felt unappreciated by their employer.
Make rewards personable because how the reward makes your employees feel in the long term matters because it awakens gratitude. With gratitude comes motivation, loyalty, higher levels of engagement and the goal we’re trying to achieve... reducing absenteeism.
Reduce Absenteeism and Thrive with Pluxee UK
Absenteeism impacts your bottom line. Whether the issue arises due to unhappiness at work or wellbeing-related illness, by following these nine steps, you can re-engage and motivate your people while caring for their physical, mental, and financial wellbeing.
Let’s make work a place to belong by boosting employee engagement and wellbeing.
Sources: Safe Workers, CIPD, MIND, Forbes, Eadion.
