A slow and steady decline in absence levels among organisations over the past five years appears to have come to a sudden halt, according to figures from Occupational Health’s sister resource XpertHR.
Since 2007, the HR benchmarking tool has reported a year-on-year decline in overall absence levels for employer groups, but figures for 2012 have now shown a marginal upward trend.
The median percentage of working time lost to absence in 2012 was 2.6%, compared with 2.5% in 2011. Overall, sickness absence represented an average of 2.9% of working time per annum, it added. However, it also stressed the 2012 figure was still significantly lower than the 3.1% recorded in 2008.
The basic cost of absence among UK employers amounted to £595 per employee in 2012. The median figure was £389 per head.
When broken down by sector, absence rates had increased slightly in both the private sector and in the public sector. But levels had continued on a downward trajectory in manufacturing and production, the report said.
“As this is an annual report, our next set of data in 2014 will give a clearer picture of whether this increase is a blip or indicative of an overall upward trend in sickness absence among employees,” the survey tool added.
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The research also revealed divisions among employers as to whether or not the Government’s proposed health and work assessment and advisory service will make much of a difference in reducing absence levels.
Marginally more employers (51.4%) indicated that they expected the service to improve sickness absence than those that do not (48.6%), the survey found.
