Reset: Sickness, Absence and the Post-Pandemic Workplace

Last week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released its latest figures on workplace absences in the UK due to sickness (https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/labourproductivity/articles/sicknessabsenceinthelabourmarket/2021).

Their publication makes for an interesting read.

If you compare the situation now with that 25 years ago, it looks to have improved. The number of working days lost due to sickness has certainly reduced.

However, sickness absences remain a huge issue for employers and employees alike, with an estimated 149.3 million working days being lost to sickness absence during 2021.

As we emerge from the pandemic, effectively addressing and managing sickness absences brings with it new challenges.

How do you identify that an employee might be suffering with their mental health in a remote-working environment? How can you reduce absences while ensuring that staff take meaningful time off when they are genuinely unwell? Is the approach to absence management which you had in place before the outbreak of Covid-19 still fit for purpose?

I believe that now is an ideal time for businesses to rethink or reset absence policies and procedures.

Instead of considering employees' sickness absence simply in terms of cost, there is much to be gained by trying to identify and deal with the reasons behind episodes of sickness themselves.

Now - more than ever before - is a time to put the issue of staff well-being high on the agenda.

Just over two months have now elapsed since the Government announced it was scrapping the remaining legal restrictions designed to prevent the spread of Covid-19 (https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-johnson-set-scrap-covid-restrictions-2022-02-20/).

Even so, the last two years have had an impact which will undoubtedly continue to be felt in homes and workplaces throughout the UK for quite some time to come.

When it comes to the world of business, the greatest change has arguably been in relation to the number of companies deciding to make remote or home-working a lasting part of their corporate culture.

Whilst splitting time between the home and office has distinct advantages in terms of flexibility, however, it also represents something of a conundrum for businesses trying to manage their workforces.

The latest ONS' data illustrates the degree to which the pandemic played out in the country's offices: nearly one-in-four "occurrences" of sickness absence last year were due to Covid-19.

If we look a little deeper, though, we can also see subtle but important shifts in the types of issues resulting in staff having to take time off ill.

One-sixth of all sickness-related absences in 2020 - 15.9 million absence days in total - were due to staff experiencing mental health problems, almost three million days more than in 2010.

The number of male employees reporting mental health conditions was 38 per cent higher in 2020 than five years before - even more than the 14 per cent increase in their female counterparts.

These increases may be demonstrative of a shift towards more openness and understanding of mental health but the scale of the data cannot - and should not - be ignored.

Companies need to put the issue of staff well-being at the forefront of their employment practices and the way in which staff absence is managed has to align with that.

Is the term 'absence management' even appropriate any longer in the working world?

If the pandemic has demonstrated anything else for companies in a wide of range economic sectors, it's that we don't know with any certainty what might be around the corner.

Good employment policies should, therefore, not just be generic or for the here and now but should reflect the culture of the individual firms which rely on and implement them.

An off-the-shelf policy serves little purpose, whereas a bespoke policy, followed in a meaningful way, could result in lasting, positive change in the workplace.

I am seeing this among many of my clients, who are taking a pro-active approach to staff well-being and no longer relying on absence management procedures introduced before the pandemic.

I hope that this continues for the benefit of employers and employees alike and that future data makes for more positive reading.