Sickness absence and rehabilitation survey 2007

The questionnaire was sent out to 3,760 member companies in February 2007 , with a 17% response rate covering 127,585 employees. The majority of respondents were small- and medium-size organisations (SMEs) with 250 or fewer employees (81%). The main findings are as follows:

• Absence rate in EEF member organisations shows a further decline to 3% or 6.7 days per employee compared to 3.1% (7.1 days) in 2005 and 3.6% (8.1 days) in 2004. An improvement in sickness absence since 2004 of 0.6 % represents an extra 1.3 million working days for EEF’s whole membership. This is a significant productivity improvement.

• On average, 39% of employees had no sickness absence over the whole year, this is a 1% improvement on the previous year’s figure. Companies with lower employee turnover, younger employees and lower proportions of manual workers have a significantly higher proportion of staff with no absence.

• The main causes of short-term sickness absence (one week or less) were unchanged from last year; 92% reported minor illnesses; 55% said back pain & other joint/muscular problems and 25% stated home/family responsibilities.

• For long-term sickness absence (4 weeks or more), the main cause was ‘surgery and medical tests/investigations’. This is cited by over a quarter of companies (27%) as the single most important cause of long-term sickness absence. SMEs are struggling with ‘surgery and medical tests/investigations’ more than the large companies - 28% of SMEs compared to 19% of companies with more than 500 employees.
• Training line managers to tackle sickness absence makes a difference. 40% of companies who train their managers reported a decrease in all types of sickness absence. This compares to 26% of companies who saw a decrease in sickness absence where no absence management training was carried out. There is a particularly strong link between training line managers in managing short-term sickness absence and a reduction in short-term absence.

• This year companies were asked about employee health related issues and costs. Nearly 90% of companies saw lost production as the largest cost arising from employee health-related issues.

• Companies were also asked for views on the balance between the costs and benefits of managing employee health issues. Most businesses (81%) thought investing in health was either cost-neutral or a positive investment. Businesses which believed the benefits outweighed the costs reported much less of a problem with sickness absence, particularly short-term absence.

• The most effective rehabilitation measures have not changed in the last three surveys. These are: altering or reducing working hours, followed by changing or modifying previous tasks; maintaining contact with the employee; allowing time off for appointments; and medical assessment of fitness for work.

• The top five main barriers to rehabilitation have been consistent across our last three surveys. They are; the employee's health condition; the GP; employee resistance to rehabilitation, the limited capacity of NHS to provide fast access to services and; waiting for the sicknote to expire.

• Companies were asked about the possibility of changes being made to the current one-week rule for GP certification for absence. A massive 98.8% of employers responded that they do not want this to go over one week. In fact, over a quarter of the employers want a system where a doctor’s sicknote is issued for all absences.