Government urged to step up efforts to tackle sickness absence

The Government is being urged to re-invigorate its efforts to tackle sickness absence and implement the recommendations of the Frost/Black Review as a matter of urgency, amidst new evidence that the long term downward trend in absence rates has plateaued.

The call was made by EEF, the manufacturers' organisation, on the back of publication of the EEF/Westfield Health 2012 annual sickness absence report. The report illustrates some continued positive results, especially for those companies taking a proactive approach to managing sickness absence as part of best practice and, who are prepared to work with their GPs to get employees back to work.

This approach has resulted in a continued year on year decline in short term absence over the last five years, with one third of companies seeing a decrease in 2011.

However, despite these efforts the overall sickness absence rate has now flattened off and remained unchanged from 2010 (2.2%), whilst the average working days lost to absence has shown a marginal increase from five days per employee to 5.1 days (this still compares to 6.7 in 2007). Of greater concern is the divergence between short and long term absence where almost 40% of companies saw an increase in 2011, an increase of 5% on 2010 alone.

This was mainly down to a jump in absence due to stress, anxiety and depression which often result in longer periods off work. In addition, the issue of presenteeism is now being discussed significantly with 55% of companies expressing concerns, in particular on the impact on long term health, short term illness and unmotivated employees. However, only 5% of companies currently monitor the cost of presenteeism.