You may not know the exact figure in your own business, but absence is on the increase and the predominant reason for people’s absence is now wellbeing whereas in the past, the biggest reason for absence was Muscular Skeletal issues such as bad backs/hand and wrist injuries – linked to poor posture, PC/Laptop and mouse usage.
A staggering 185.6 million working days were lost to stress related illnesses in 2022, which is a new record according to the Office for National Statistics, and the increase from 2021 to 2022 is an increase of over 35 million days – simply staggering.
However, absence is just the tip of the cost iceberg. A recent wellbeing study by Deloitte showed that only 2 in 5 employees are working at peak performance and that presenteeism from mental ill health alone costs the UK economy £15.1 billion per annum. Presenteeism is the loss in productivity that occurs when employees come to work but function at less than full capacity because of ill health.
The £15.1 billion was calculates as follows; 10% of this figure was allocated to the cost of replacing staff, 30% to the actual cost of sickness absence, and a whopping 60% was due to reduced productivity at work – shocking, isn’t it? Let’s just leave that figure there for a moment. Absent employees are LESS costly to you then the employees who ARE in the office, but not functioning at capacity. Yep, you read that right!
So, what can you do to improve the wellbeing of employees that are absent from work or at work but not performing?
Big businesses and the sharp CEO’S already get it, and my betting is that many SME business owners feel they need to do something about this emerging crisis, but are worried that they don’t know where to start or what it’s going to cost them!
In an extensive study, it was reported that 6 in 10 boards say that the wellbeing of staff is their TOP concern. And they didn’t sugar coat their reasons either – they were honest that it was their top concern because they understand that employee wellbeing ultimately improved business results.
How we can we help?
We can help you to look at creating a Wellbeing Strategy that works for your business by coming along to our next FREE WORKSHOP on 30th June at 10am. Book your FREE place here.
In this workshop, we will help you to understand what we mean by wellbeing, and we’ll then share some simple and cost effective things that you can do to provide wellbeing support to your employees.
We will then share our simple approach to creating a wellbeing strategy that works for your business. There are a limited number of places available, to ensure that we can make this an interactive and engaging session for the participants, so make sure you Book your FREE place here.
