Sean Garmory is a Solicitor at specialist employment law firm, Collingwood Legal. Sean considers the increase in poor health amongst the UK workforce and what this could mean for employers.
A concerning picture
A report from the Resolution Foundation has highlighted the increased prevalence of poor health amongst young people. According to the report, one-in-twenty young people (excluding full-time students) were economically inactive in 2023 due to ill health. While these young people are not currently employed, the report points to the prevalence of mental illness amongst the 18-24 demographic with 34% reporting symptoms of common mental health disorders and, more importantly, 44% of young people aged 18-24 with mental health problems are already employed and employers will need to be mindful in respect of managing these employees.
However, it is not just young people experiencing an increase in poor health. A survey from the CIPD and Simplyhealth in 2023 looked into sickness absence trends amongst a cross section of the UK workforce representing 6.5 million employees. According to the report’s findings, employees were absent from work for an average of 7.8 days over the course of a year. For context, pre-pandemic sickness absence levels amounted to 5.8 days.
The report highlighted that work-related stress was a key contributor to absence with 76% of respondents reporting absences from work for this reason. It was also noteworthy from the respondents that long-term sickness absence was mainly caused by mental health issues at 63%.
What can employers do about this?
Evidently, sickness absence is becoming an increasing issue for employers. On the one hand, employers will want to be supportive of employees who are absent for reasons of sickness and will want to try to assist to get them back to work, but on the other hand, repeated sickness absence can reduce morale within a team of employees and can reduce the productivity of an organisation. Ultimately, there is only so much an employer can do sustainably while running their business.
It is important that an employer has a sickness absence procedure in place to deal with both instances of short-term and intermittent absences as well as long-term absences. It is equally important, however, that employers monitor levels of sickness absence and keep records of the reason behind a period of absence in order to more effectively manage repeat or persistent absence issues.
However, it is also the case that individual managers need to be equipped to deal with these issues when they arise. The CIPD report concluded that “a lack of line manager skills and confidence is the top challenge in supporting wellbeing”. In respect of sickness absence, it is often the case that an employer is judged by what a reasonable employer would do in the situation in question but being that every sickness absence and employee is different, it is unsurprising that sickness absence issues remain a prevalent problem.
Collingwood Legal is a specialist employment law firm and we provide bespoke training and advice to organisations on all areas of employment law.
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