Sickness absence rates increase for the first time in two years

The proportion of organisations now focusing on employee well-being as a means of tackling increasing absence levels and costs, has soared over the last year, according to a new survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

The CIPD annual Absence Management survey of more than 800 organisations, reveals employee well-being has recently climbed up many corporate agendas as a critical area of action, with 42% of organisations saying they have implemented a well-being strategy compared to just 26% for the previous year.

The increased interest in providing employee wellbeing support among employers accompanied by an increase in the average annual level of absence, which climbed to 8.4 days per employee a year, from 8 days for the previous 12 months. There was also a significant increase in stress at work with a positive net balance of 31% of employers reporting an increase in stress-related absence.

The survey findings indicate that 60% of organisations in the public sector now have a well-being strategy compared to 42% last year with also a dramatic increase in the private services sector (37%) compared to 22% for the previous year.

On average, organisations spend 5.4% of their paybill on employee well-being benefits and 42% of organisations indicate that this will increase further during 2008.

Despite the investment being made in this area, only 13% of organisations evaluate the effectiveness of their well-being initiatives. Ongoing investment may be hard to justify if budgets come under pressure unless there is evidence that employee well-being initiatives provide real return on investment.

The survey also highlights that poor internal communication of the benefits being provided to staff means that often the investment made by employers in this area is not appreciated. Just 11% of employers believe their employees fully appreciate the well-being benefit spend, with two-fifths (40%) saying poor internal communication is the main reason for this.

Ben Willmott, CIPD Employee Relations Adviser comments: ìThe report shows employers are increasingly recognising the benefits that can be gained by supporting employee well-being.

ìIt is becoming more and more evident that organisations are starting to manage employee health rather than sickness, not as a standalone well-being strategy but as an integral part of an overall well-being programme. As organisations increasingly face the costs and risks of long-term absence, damaging their productivity, growth, retention and brand, businesses are increasingly under pressure to address the well-being agenda.

ìHowever attempts to promote employee wellbeing and manage absence will be fatally undermined unless they are underpinned by good people management and effective work organisation. There is no point providing healthy eating options and on-site gyms if people are dreading going to work because of their bullying line manager or because of their excessive workload. ì

Well-being initiatives include: Almost half of organisations provide all employees with access to counselling services as part of their well-being initiative. This is followed by employee assistance programmes (31%) and ëstop smokingí support (31%). Around quarter of employers also provide health screening, healthy canteen options and subsidised gym membership to all employees.

Other key findings:

Rates of absence:

The average level of employee absence has increased for the first time in two years ñ now 3.7% of working time lost compared to 3.5% in 2006.

Only three quarters of employers record their annual employee absence rate.

On average, employers believe that about 16% of absence is not genuine.

Absence levels in the public sector has increased to 4.5% from 4.3% for the previous 12 months, with the health sector recording the biggest annual increase in the level of employee absence to 5.5% from 4.6% for the previous year.

The only decrease in average absence levels across the public services was recorded by the local government organisations, which saw the headline rate of employee absence fall significantly to 3.7% from 4.8%.

Stress

40% of organisations report that stress related absence increased in the previous 12 months. Just 9% of respondents identified a decrease in stress-related absence.

Workload (34%) has been identified as the number one cause of work-related stress followed by management style (16%) and organisational change (14.3%). Long hours are cited as the seventh most significant cause of work-related stress.

Cost of absence

The average cost of absence increased to 659 per employee per year from last yearís figure of 598.

The cost of absence is highest in the public sector at 732 per employee per year compared to 680 last year.

Workforce Size

Organisations employing 1-99 employees have an average absence rate of 3% (6.8 days per employee) compared to 4.4% (10 days per employee) for organisations of 2000 or more workers.

Causes of absence

Minor illness is the number one cause of short-term absence for both manual and non-manual employees.

Back pain is the leading cause of long-term absence for manual workers, while stress is the main cause of long-term absence for non manual employees.