As with previous surveys, the majority of respondents were small- and medium-size organisations (82%).
The questionnaire asked for detailed responses in areas
such as:
- Trends in sickness absence
- Causes of sickness absence
- Policies on sickness absence
- Occupational health services
- Managing sickness absence and rehabilitation in practice
- Barriers to rehabilitation
EEF has conducted similar surveys of sickness absence and rehabilitation in 2003 and 2004: where possible, comparisons have been made with these results. Whilst the majority of questions were identical to these previous surveys, a few were reworded and new questions added (including one on profitability) to this survey.
We are able to analyse correlations between sickness absence and rehabilitation and factors such as the age of the workforce, geographical location of the organisation, size of organisation (small: up to 100 employees; medium: 101-250 employees and large: 251 and more employees) and sectors of manufacturing.
One of the strengths of our survey is the response we get from the smaller organisations (29% of the respondents have 50 or less employees, 21% have between 51-100 employees) as many other surveys do not have such good representation from this group. This is important because the vast majority of UK employers are small organisations.