Q&A - What is the cost of absenteeism and does it vary from firm to firm?

According to ACAS, the average worker in the UK is absent from work for 8.4 days a year. This figure varies from one workplace to another but it adds up to an annual cost of £598 per employee. The cost to the UK economy is £10-12 billion annually. Why is this cost so high?

To estimate the real cost of absenteeism in a business, think about how a business has to manage when someone is away on unplanned absence. The business is likely to experience problems associated with:

- Hiring, and paying for, temporary replacement staff
- Missed deadlines (e.g. customer orders) due to a lack of trained, experienced employees
- Lower customer satisfaction levels – have you heard an employee apologise for poor service by saying ‘the person who usually does this is off sick’
- Lower morale among colleagues expected to take on extra responsibilities
- Diminished reputation with customers and potential employees, and even lost business

There have been many surveys of absence rates in the UK. Absenteeism rate vary by management style, culture, traditions of behaviour and working conditions. The following patterns have also been widely observed [source: ACAS 2010]:

- Young people tend to have more frequent, shorter periods of sickness than older people

- Manual workers generally have higher levels of absence than office workers

- Office workers have higher levels of stress-related illness than manual workers

- Unauthorised absence is more common among new starters; longer serving workers get to know the firm’s working rules and tend to abide by them

- Sick absence due to work-related accident is also greater for new or inexperienced workers (suggesting a key role for better induction training to reduce absenteeism)

- Absence tends to increase where there are high levels of overtime (note the link to capacity management),or frequently rotating shift patterns

- Absence is likely to be greater in larger working groups because it is less likely to be noticed