Here are four ways you can avoid staff pulling a sickie

The HR Blog

The staff sickie culture is becoming an accepted part of working life in the UK. Research from breathehr shows that one in seven employees (16%) have pulled a sickie in the past year. This figure represents some two and a half million workers, who took an average of three bogus sick days each. Convert that into hard figures and that represents an alarmingly high £900 million dent in the UK economy.

The reasons that staff unjustly call in sick are revealing and offer an insight into ways that you can avoid staff pulling a sickie in the first place.

  1. Employ good absence management practices

Firstly, using robust absence management practices can deter employees from taking unauthorised leave. When employees know they are being monitored they are less likely to pull a sickie. Detail in your employment contracts what you consider to be unauthorised absence and how you deal with this, so it is clear to employees you take this seriously. Reputable absence reporting and management systems can be used to ensure you record staff sick leave accurately. This gives you accurate data that will allow you to spot patterns of absence.

  1. Manage work-related stress

19% of those respondents in the breathehr survey said that they took a sickie to avoid a stressful situation at work. Having strong lines of communication and support methods in place can help with work-related stress among your employees. Having a culture that acknowledges the difficulties faced by employees and makes support available if needed can foster a better attitude towards managing stress. This includes self-management such as ownership of problems and management of workload. With an approachable and accommodating management, staff feel able to share the burden of stress and are therefore more likely to confront their work problems than to shy away from them.

  1. Boost morale

Using tactics that boost staff morale can help reduce the number of staff sickies taken. After all, if staff love their jobs and their places of work, then there is less inclination to dodge work in the first place.

There are many ways of boosting morale: celebrating accomplishments and giving recognition for a job well done; providing great perks and benefits; employing up-to-date technology; involving employees in strategy formation; holding fun activities and team-building events; having a bright and cheery work environment; encouraging communication and feedback; providing opportunities for self-improvement and development; allowing flexible working, and so on.

  1. Hold return to work interviews

Many businesses hold return to work interviews after every leave of absence. If staff think their reasons for being absent may be scrutinised, it can discourage them from pulling a sickie in the first place.  You will need to build something like this into your policies and procedures, and will need to have sufficient resources to allocate to it. But these “illness interviews” have been proven to reduce absenteeism.

 

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