ABSENCE – The Facts

• Employee absence costs the economy in excess of £13 billion a year, which equates to £531 per employee.
  
• Estimated £197 million working days a year are lost due to absence.
  
• Employees have an average of 7.8 day’s absence per year.
  
• Employers consider 13% of all absences to be ‘sickies’ costing £1.2 billion.
  
• Short term absence (up to 7 days) accounts for *80% of all absence.
  
• Long term absence (28+ days) accounts for 20% of all absence.
  o Has a greater impact on business.
  o Only 15% of workers actually return to work.
  o Accounts for 56% of day’s loss and up to 70% of costs.

Organisational Effects

If high levels of employee absence are ineffectively managed, it is the company that ultimately suffers due to the financial strain and long term implications. Such implications include:

• Large overhead costs
  
• Reduced staff morale
  
• Work disruption
  
• Affected service and production levels

10 Top Tips

To help you decrease employee absence over the festive period we have put together 10 top tips:

1. Take action immediately.
2. Implement a positive written absence policy.
3. Use an in-house management system.
4. Inform senior managers of their rights and responsibilities.
5. Introduce, as standard practice, a return-to-work interview and train senior managers in how to conduct them successfully.
6. Identify primary cause of employee’s absence.
7. Collect and accurately monitor employees’ absence levels.
8. Continue communications with long term absent employees.
9. Employ an effective reporting procedure.
10. Provide absence synopsis to managers.

How can Epic help?

It is very important to discourage absence in the workplace, and to reduce avoidable absence by providing employees with the support they need to return to work.
Proactively reduce your absence level now……

Absence Management is an engaging two-hour programme, used to assist managers and employees in implementing absence management best practice. The programme offers a reflective learning approach by using engaging and powerful video case studies; it also offers an in-depth understanding of absence.

Request a FREE Demo for the first 100 Respondents only.

Suitable for both private and public sector usage, it helps managers and employees:

• Reduce absence in the workplace
  
• Work within their rights and responsibilities when managing an absent employee and when absent themselves
  
• Monitor absence and use this information appropriately
  
• Act fairly and effectively in return to work interviews
  
• Agree solutions for recurring absences
  
  The content has been developed by renowned experts in absence management and validated by senior HR professionals.

* Statistics provided by www.cigna.co.uk, 2006.