THE INDEPENDENT: UK workers take record low number of sick days, official figures show

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However, Cary Cooper, president of theChartered Institute of Personnel and Development and professor of organisational psychology and health at the University of Manchester, said the statistics were not a true reflection of sickness rates among the UK’s workers.

 

“It’s not real. What’s pumping it is presenteeism,” he said of the drop in absences.

 

“If it was really a drop in sickness absence rates, you would have a productivity rise. And we haven’t seen a productivity rise in years.”

 

 

 

Mr Cooper said there were two reasons presenteeism was on the rise: “The recession made jobs less secure, and the rise of Brexit uncertainty. People think ‘I don’t want to be someone downsized so I’m going to turn up even when I’m not well’.”

Mr Cooper said part of the problem is that presenteeism is more difficult to measure than the rate of absences, meaning companies struggle to grasp the scale of the issue or put the right policies in place to combat it.

 

“Employers ought to be doing wellbeing audits to find out what their employees are perceiving about the workplace.”

 

 

 

Questions companies should ask themselves, said Mr Cooper, include: “Are we creating a long-hours culture, do we have a bullying management style?”

 

While Mr Cooper highlighted that the issue of presenteeism is not exclusive to the UK, he noted that the most recent research indicated that it costs the economy more than double what absenteeism does, because “you turn up to work ill and add no value, you just turn up for face time”.

“Say you have the flu, but you’re afraid of staying off for four or five days. So you turn up and infect everyone – but you’re also not doing anything,” he added.