Ah, the time-honoured tradition of pulling a sickie. It’s as old as employment itself and us Brits have forged a reputation for making the most of it.
Everyone’s done it, right? That early morning call to your boss, the feeble ‘I can’t make it in today’, the creeping sensation of guilt quickly quashed by the sofa, a duvet and trash TV. Yeah, you’ve done it.
But are sickness rates really that high? According to XpertHR, sickness absence is an average of 2.8 per cent of working time each year, or 6.5 days. This costs employers an average of £16 billion. Historically, it’s the public sector which has suffered from higher rates of sickness absence, compared with the private sector.
Of course, there are many legitimate reasons for being off work so it’s impossible to know how many of these lost days are due to hangovers, late nights or a desire to ditch the office without booking legitimate holiday.
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