Workers haven’t taken a sickie for England’s match against Trinidad & Tobago

FirstAssist, has revealed that sickness absence reports from UK employers for today, 15th June 2006, are no higher than last Thursday or the same time last year. Rory Murphy, FirstAssist, believes this suggests that enlightened employers could be letting staff leave early so they don’t need to take a sickie to see England play Trinidad & Tobago at 5pm.

Our analysis shows very little difference in staff absence levels compared to last Thursday or the same time last year confirmed Rory Murphy. What I believe this indicates is that the employers who are using our sickness absence management programmes have created a culture of positive employee attendance which means staff are less inclined to ’take a sickie’. The employers who are taking a positive approach to staff attendance are also, probably the ones who are most realistic about what will motivate staff. Given that the match starts at 5pm it shouldn’t cause too much upheaval to allow staff to leave early or to provide TV screens in canteens and staff recreation areas.

FirstAssist operates sickness absence management programmes for a number of leading employers in the UK. These programmes enable employers to record all employee absence in order to be able to address absence pro-actively, providing health and wellbeing solutions to solve any issues affecting staff attendance and get employees back to work after sickness.