National Sickie Day

The first Monday in February has officially been dubbed ‘National Sickie Day. It is thought to be the worst day for people pulling 'sickies', with up to 350,000 employees expected to take sickness absence.

Poor weather, long dark nights and a general dissatisfaction with official holidays all mean that early February is a very popular time for workers to give themselves an extra 'duvet day'. Add that to the fact that almost three-quarters of the country's skivers prefer to fake illness on a Monday, and that makes today the worst day of the year for employers.

The Employment Law Advisory Service (ELAS), which carried out the research, estimated today's absence will cost industry more than £30 million, taking into account factors such as lost business opportunities, reduced levels of service and output, and salary and overtime payments incurred.  

Half of the 1,500 business leaders interviewed for the nationwide survey said they did not believe staff who complained of being ill.
 
Peter Mooney, head of consultancy at ELAS, said: "The traditional phone call was always a way for bosses to decipher whether staff members were bluffing or genuinely ill. But now, as our research shows, many employers are dispensing with it, which leads me to think that the system will be open to more abuse than ever.”
 
"The cost to the economy could soar and that is the last thing we need as we are slowly crawling out of the deepest recession for generations. We need staff fit and healthy and willing to work hard to get business booming again. I do wonder if allowing them to text or email in sick is the most effective way of doing that. However our research also concluded that employers who accepted electronic forms of communication for sickness were also the ones who trusted their staff the most."

Questionable excuses ranged from a man who claimed that the road outside his house was too busy to cross to another worker who said he could not make it in because his mother-in-law was supposed to die at the weekend but had not.

Mooney added: "At least the dodgy excuses can give bosses something to laugh at but the reality is that absenteeism is a serious concern for modern business."
 
"And our research also showed that employers do not believe their staff are more likely to come into work ill because of fears over job security. In fact many believe workers use the stress of the economic collapse as an excuse to take more time off ill."