Variety of staff taking sick depart hits 10-year excessive

Stress was one of many greatest contributors to an increase in office absences over the previous yr, in keeping with analysis that discovered the variety of staff taking sick depart has hit a 10-year excessive.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Growth (CIPD) analysed illness absence and worker well being amongst 918 organisations representing 6.5 million workers, with 76% of respondents reporting they’d taken day without work as a result of stress previously yr.

Recurring circumstances of Covid-19 and lengthy Covid have been one other set off for staff to take day without work whereas the cost-of-living disaster was cited by many as a purpose behind sick depart.

The report comes as companies warn of continuous difficulties with recruitment and a scarcity of expert employees, prompting its authors to say it was clear employers wanted to supply extra assist to get folks again to work.

They discovered that employees have been absent from work for a median of seven.8 days over the previous yr, up from 5.8 days in 2019, earlier than the pandemic and the very best since 2010.

Rachel Suff, senior worker wellbeing adviser on the CIPD, mentioned: “Exterior elements just like the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living disaster have had profound impacts on many individuals’s wellbeing.”

Of the organisations responding, 50% mentioned they’ve workers over the previous 12 months who’ve skilled, or are experiencing lengthy Covid – ie with signs that final 12 weeks or extra – up from 46% the earlier yr. Greater than a 3rd (37%) of organisations reported Covid-19 as nonetheless being a major explanation for short-term absence.

“These figures could underestimate the problem as not all workers with the situation report their signs and a fifth of respondents didn’t know whether or not any workers had lengthy Covid-19 signs,” mentioned the report, primarily based on a survey performed with the insurer Simplyhealth.

The primary explanation for long-term absences was psychological in poor health well being, which 63% of respondents cited as the highest trigger, whereas short-term absences continued to be dominated by minor diseases like colds and musculoskeletal accidents, although psychological in poor health well being was additionally cited by 43% of respondents as a purpose for staff to take just a few days off work.

The rise in illness absences comes amid a rising demand from workers to work extra flexibly and to work at home in response to caring tasks, rising prices and stress at work.

A current report by KPMG mentioned two-fifths of UK staff are contemplating a profession change as a result of rising value of residing, up from 35% in 2022. The accountancy agency surveyed 1,500 UK workers about their working habits and profession aspirations and located a difficult financial surroundings is altering their employment priorities.

A report on Monday by economists on the similar agency mentioned the UK’s low productiveness, which measures the quantity produced by a employee every hour, will weigh on the financial system and with continued political uncertainty and excessive curiosity and gradual development within the second half of this yr.

They concern the UK may “battle to maintain its head above water within the second half of the yr” as “renewed indicators of stress” hit the financial system.

KPMG predicted UK development will gradual to simply 0.4% this yr, down from 4.1% in 2022, and gradual additional to simply 0.3% in 2024, lower than half the 0.8% forecast by the Organisation for Financial Cooperation & Growth (OECD).

Labour mentioned the UK was the one OECD nation to have gone backwards on all three charges of employment, unemployment and financial inactivity for the reason that begin of the pandemic.

Evaluation of lately printed knowledge from the OECD exhibits that throughout the Paris-based organisation’s 38 member nations, the UK is the one one to have a decrease employment fee, the next fee of unemployment and the next fee of financial inactivity than in early 2020.

“5 different nations even have a decrease employment fee, whereas 14 others have seen unemployment rise and 5 others have seen financial inactivity improve. However, beneath the Tories, the UK is uniquely failing on all three fronts,” Labour mentioned.

Labour’s new shadow work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, mentioned the UK was struggling a “disaster of financial inactivity” that has particularly affected the over-50s and younger folks.