A sharp decline in employee absence in the private sector has seen the gap between public and private sector absence widen from 2.6 days per employee per year to 3.3 days, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s annual Absence Management Survey.
The survey of more than 600 employers shows that while private sector absence has fallen from 7.2 days to 6.4 days per employee per year, public sector absence has remained stubbornly high, averaging 9.7 days compared to 9.8 days for the previous year.
The overall level of workplace absence across all sectors of the economy now averages 7.4 days per employee per year. While this is a welcome improvement on the 8 days recorded a year earlier the figure nonetheless represents a loss of 185 million working days at an overall cost to the UK economy of £17.3 billion.
Closing the gap between levels of absence in the public and private sectors could reduce the total number of working days lost by around 20 million each year. Reducing public sector absence to the level now managed in private sector services would cut the annual cost of public sector absence from £4.5 billion to £3.8 billion – saving the taxpayer £0.7 billion per year.
That levels of general absence have gone down overall may be partly explained by active measures on the part of employers to tackle absence during tougher economic times, with four in ten saying that they have recently increased their focus on reducing absence levels and costs as a result of the impact of recession.
The survey suggests increased employee concerns about job security may be another reason to explain the fall in absence. This is not surprising given that the majority (56%) of respondent organisations have made redundancies in the last 12 months and that four in ten employers use employee absence data as part of the criterion when selecting for redundancy.
Although the survey was conducted before the onset of recent concern about the possible impact of the swine flu pandemic on UK workplaces, the findings of the overall average cost of employee absence (£692 per employee per year) indicates the potential economic damage that would be caused by large scale flu-related absence in the coming months.
Ben Willmott, Senior Public Policy Adviser at the CIPD, says:
“It appears that the recession has contributed to a fall in the overall level of employee absence, with private sector absence levels at the lowest levels ever recorded by the CIPD absence management survey. It is disappointing that public sector absence levels remain so high.
“There is no simple explanation for the public/private absence gap, with a number of factors in play including differences in demographic profiles with a higher proportion of women and older workers in the public sector. The public sector also has a high proportion of challenging public-facing roles such as those involved in policing, nursing, teaching and social care.
“However there is also a fundamental difference in management culture and practice between the sectors. The public sector is more likely to provide leave for family circumstances, provide access to occupational health services, counselling services and physiotherapy. But they are less likely than their private sector counterparts to discipline or dismiss employees for absence-related reasons. As well as this public sector employers are also less likely to restrict pay to help manage absence, and continue to pay occupational sick pay for longer to those on long-term sick leave”
“Effective absence management involves finding a balance between providing support to help employees with health problems stay in and return to work and taking consistent and firm action against employees that try and take advantage of organisations’ occupational sick pay schemes. Some public sector employers have not got this balance right.”
Other key findings:
• The average cost of absence is £692 per employee per year
• The average cost of public sector absence is £784 per employee, compared to £666 for the private sector services and £754 for the manufacturing and production sector
• The main causes of short-term absence are minor illnesses such as colds and flu, stress and musculoskeletal conditions
• The main causes of long-term absence are acute medical conditions, stress and mental health conditions and musculoskeletal conditions and back pain
• Just over a fifth (21%) of employers said they had noticed an increase in the proportion of people coming to work ill in the last 12 months
• A fifth of private sector employers agree that employee concerns over job security have had the effect of decreasing absence levels
• One in five respondents said there had been an increase in reported mental health problems such as anxiety and depression in the last 12 months
Willmott continues: “One potential consequence of employee fears over job security is that some may feel under pressure to come into work when they are not well. Line managers must be aware of changes in employees’ performance and behaviour which might indicate that all is not well. Managers should be having regular one to one conversations with their employees, regularly ask them how they are and have an awareness of what is happening in their lives outside work.”