Ever thrown a sickie? If you have, the chances are you gave a different reason for your absence to the actual reason. A ‘sickie’ is well known in British culture as a day taken as sick leave when one is not actually ill. National Sickie Day was first coined in 2011 by a British law firm ELAS after they published research showing that the first Monday in February is the most likely day for workers in the UK to call in sick. The gloomy weather, post festive break blues and seasonal illnesses, all contribute to that general feeling of meh.
The HSE cites that 36.8 million working days were lost due to work-related ill health and non fatal workplace injury in 2021/22. A staggering 17 million working days were lost due to work related-stress, depression or anxiety.* The annual cost of work related injury and new cases of ill health in 2019/20 (excluding long latency illness such as cancer) costing the UK economy £18.8 billion.**
Presenteeism (working when unwell) has been a concerning trend for many HR departments. The CIPD Health and Wellbeing Report 2022 cited that fewer HR respondents reported observing presenteeism in the workplace (10% drop in 2022 to 65%) but more reported observing presenteeism among those working from home (2022: 81%; 2021 77%). It’s often easier to do some work from the comfort of your own home without the effort of the commute or likelihood of spreading illness but how effective are these individuals being and what’s the impact on their recovery if they’re not resting sufficiently? Experts argue that taking a day to rest and recover is more productive than going to work sick.
The British Safety Council reported research by Slater and Gordon in 2019 that found workers take an average of four sick days a year due to mental ill health or stress but lie about it to their boss for fear of being judged, demoted or sacked. The stigma that surrounds mental ill health is well documented. Stigma arises from a lack of understanding of mental illness (ignorance and misinformation) and also because some people have negative attitudes or beliefs towards it (prejudice).
Employers have a duty of care to support their employees’ health, safety and wellbeing. Being able to talk openly about mental health is important as problems are less likely to build up. Although conversations about mental health are much more common at work, CIPD research found that only 44% of line managers receive training to support people with mental health. At The Thrive Team, we know from personal experience and from the conversations we have with managers that often managers avoid having a conversation about an employee’s wellbeing and mental health because they either feel it’s personal to the individual or because they are worried about saying the wrong thing.
The latter has been our driver in offering a range of training options to help raise awareness of mental health at work and support managers to have the awareness and confidence to start a conversation when they have concerns about an individual’s wellbeing. Our Wellbeing Conversations Guide offers practical advice on how to make wellbeing conversations part of working life and includes a weekly wellbeing check up that’s helpful for individuals and teams to reflect on their wellbeing. Creating a culture where wellbeing and mental health are part of everyday work conversations signals that it’s OK to not be OK and may even prevent an individual from feeling like they need to ‘throw a sickie’.
If you’d like to speak to us or find out more about how we could support your or your business, get in touch here. We’d love to hear from you.
*Estimates based on self-reports from the Labour Force Survey
** Estimates based on HSE Cost Model
Download your copy of The Thrive Team Wellbeing Conversations Guide here:
