Six
out of 10 workers thought they were likely to have a day off sick last month,
with more than one in 10 planning to call in sick even when there was nothing
wrong with them.
The
study of 1,000 workers carried out for the Consumer Health Information Centre
and the charity Developing Patient Partnerships found that nearly one in four
(23 per cent) of employees were anticipating starting the year with the
“January blues”.
A
total of 13 per cent admitted they were already planning to take a day off sick
when there was nothing wrong with them, rising to more than a third (34 per
cent) of 16-24 year olds.
Where
there was genuine sickness, flu was the most common culprit for people taking
time off work (cited by one in three of those surveyed), followed by colds (23
per cent), headaches and hangovers (13 per cent) and stress (12 per cent).
In
a separate study, more than eight out of 10 employees admitted to faking an
illness so they could take a day off work, while three-quarters of bosses said
they called in sick when there was nothing wrong.
The
survey of almost 1,000 employees by law firm Peninsula and payroll recruitment
specialist Portfolio Payroll found two-thirds of those who took time off did
not feel guilty.
A
quarter said they had feigned illness once in the past 12 months, more than a
third had done so twice, 17 per cent three times and 7 per cent on more than
five occasions.
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Nearly two-thirds of finance directors don’t trust sick notes written by GPs,
according to a survey by Reed Accountancy.
The
poll of 266 finance directors, asking whether they trusted sick notes, found 30
per cent said they probably did not and a further 34 per cent definitely did
not.
