Rachel Suff: I think by now we're all appreciating that there's a lot of technical detail for people to absorb and get their heads around in view of those changes that are coming through imminently around statutory sick pay. So I lead in the public policy team at CIPD for health and wellbeing. So what I'm going to do in terms of standing back a little bit really and looking at, well, what are the implications and the broader impact for people professionals in terms of managing sickness absence, but also supporting health and wellbeing in the workforce so that you can hopefully contain and manage sickness absence, avoid unnecessary sickness absence. It's undoubtedly quite a challenging environment at the moment in terms of people's health and work.
So on the first slide, I'm going to just highlight that sickness absence, as Amanda has alluded to, is a cause for concern at the moment. This is our health and wellbeing at work survey report that we published in the autumn. I think most CIPD members will be familiar with it. It's a sample of 1000 employers in terms of what their sickness absence levels and health and wellbeing patterns are. And it's a robust piece of research. And we can see that on this graph, if you look at the orange line in terms of the number of days taken on average per employee per year, it has shot up to 9.4 days per year. And that is a big increase, the biggest in 15 years as far as our research can tell. And nearly, well, nearly two days more than after the pandemic and a big increase from 5.8 days since just before the pandemic. So it's really gone up. So it's a cause for concern.
Now, obviously, the regulatory changes that Sam has so brilliantly taken us through in terms of that complex technical detail. Obviously, there are very immediate implications for HR professionals and all organisations, including payroll professionals and organisations from those immediate changes. They are urgent and need to be taken on board immediately. But also there are slightly broader implications as well, even if you do pay occupational sick pay from day one. So you might think, oh, there isn't an immediate impact. There still will be in terms of the longer, more strategic considerations, such as it could have been a really great health related benefit to provide statutory occupational sick pay from day one, but that will no longer be a differentiating factor in terms of your overall recruitment and retention strategy. So it is always an opportunity, even if you might not feel immediately impacted, to think about the wider approach in terms of how you support people's health and wellbeing and avoid unnecessary sickness absence. So that should be the guiding principle.
So if we just look quickly at the next slide, we can see what the top causes of short-term and long-term absence are across organisations broadly. And we can see that it's always the case that minor illnesses is the main cause of short-term absence by far. But we can see mental ill health by far the main cause of long-term absence. It's also a cause of short-term absence and we have stress as well. A cause which is psychological ill health, musculoskeletal injuries, a high up the scale as well. Now those are national figures and it's very helpful to benchmark your organisation. But really what's important here is to understand what the main causes of sickness absence are in your organisation across your workforce, because they will vary enormously in terms of sector roles, occupations.
And of course, there will be times when people do need to take time off because they're unwell. But by having the right policies, practices in place, it should be possible to support people's health needs in a very supportive way, while also having clear understandings and expectations across your workforce that you do not accept unauthorised absence and you want to discourage inappropriate use of sick pay schemes.
So on the next slide, I've just got some guiding principles around this that I think every organisation would benefit from looking at. So does your absence management framework, so your policies, your training, your procedures and so on, first of all, do they encourage a genuine reporting climate where physical and psychological health are given equal standing, as I explained in those causes of absence? And do you foster a culture in your workplace where people feel safe and secure to talk about health issues? Because a lot of people can feel quite nervous about sharing information about their health. And if you don't know, if your line managers don't know why people are off, there could be unexplained absences. We want people to feel that they can talk about the real issues that are affecting them because then the organisations are able to offer the right support. So it's important that you've got that feeling of what we call psychological safety.
And then secondly, be very mindful of your obligations as an employer in terms of the Equality Act, where somebody might have a disability or long term health condition. It could be, especially with the very high number of people with ongoing health conditions. There's nearly 9 million in this country and most of those are that most of those people are working still, but it could be that they need to take short term absences because of a fluctuating health condition or a disability. So organisations need to have that flexibility, that support in place to provide not only support to that individual to enable them to carry on working, but also not to penalise somebody that could be discriminatory, for example, if you're using a trigger system as part of your absence framework.
And then very important, do you have effective reporting ongoing so that you know what is happening in terms of absence and attendance in your organisation. So are you looking at the data, are you monitoring, are you analysing the data, looking beyond the data in terms of sickness absence? Are you looking at it also in conjunction with other employee data like engagement surveys? What lies beneath the raw sickness absence data? Is it effectively capturing the real reasons for sickness absence in your organisation? But use qualitative data as well. So line manager information is very important, that management data.
So we've got very good guidance at the CIPD for members. We've got very good factsheet around managing and monitoring, measuring sickness absence. We've got a whole suite of absence management guidance.
And then fourthly, think about prevention. It is not within the gift of employers to prevent a lot of disease and conditions that people might develop. Of course it isn't, but are you fully evaluating the impact that work might be having on people's health?
Our Good Work Index at the CIPD last year showed that a quarter of employees said that work was having a negative impact on both their physical and their mental health, and that is not good, is it? The role of employers is to mitigate and or eliminate the risks that could arise to people's health from their work. And that means psychological health. So are you carrying out stress risk assessments, for example, and it also means physical health. Think about the high level of absence due to musculoskeletal injuries. So prevention should be your guiding principle as well.
And then following on from that. Are you thinking about and implementing early intervention to help mitigate problems? So not waiting until somebody's been off sick for four weeks and health issues and absence have already escalated for a referral to occupational health or providing early access to mental health support and other expert help, employee assistance programmes, counselling, whatever health support you can provide, think about offering it at the earliest possible opportunity.
And then moving down, are you offering in a proactive way work adjustments? Of course, there's a statutory duty, it's explicit under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments if somebody has a disability, but are you offering them beyond that because they could, that approach could reap benefits in the longer term by offering some flexibility. It could be minor adjustments to someone's role, their working arrangement, because it could help manage the impact of somebody's health symptoms on work and then help to keep them in healthy work and avoid unnecessary sickness absence. So really think about being proactive in that space.
And then last but one, so do employees in your organisation know what is in place in terms of sickness absence policies? What is expected of them if they are off sick? What benefits are available to them in terms of sick pay, but also other support that could help them stay in work and come back to work as well? Finally, I'm going to move on with my last slide to this point. It's about the role that line managers play for supporting people through that interaction with work and managing any health issues and also sickness, absence and return to work. They are your linchpin line managers. And yet we know only around half train line managers, specifically around absence management, in terms of supporting health and wellbeing in their teams. But if you put that investment in, it could pay dividends. So they do need that education. They do need to feel confident to have those conversations. They need to feel skilled and also moving on into building trusting relationships, they are integral to creating that safe environment where people feel they've got the confidence to share sensitive information about their health. So it's about their behaviour as well and not just knowing what the procedure is and then having no sensitive one-to-ones and feeling confident about keeping in touch. We know a lot of line managers because they don't want to pressure people when they're off sick. But actually it's really important to maintain that employment relationship, but it needs to be done in a sensitive way with that individual if they are off sick and not feeling well. So we've got really good guidance around that as well, how to be supportive and help return help support a sustainable return to work.
So if we move just very briefly onto the next slide, I will leave you with this because I think you've got lots of questions. Effective return to work. So return to work is often seen and implemented as a as a one off event, but actually it's so isn't, it is, a journey. And I use that word with intention, because first of all, it is about maintaining communication when someone is off sick planning for that return to work. What would help you? What do you need? What about a phased return? It could be that some people. Come back day one after sickness absence, depending on what the issue was and how long it was for, and they're ready to go. But it could mean that actually they need some extra support, some adjustments, phased return. It will all depend on the individual situation. So prepare for that return and then support the individual and the manager if you're HR, to make that sustained return to work so that they don't feel the need, well, feel overwhelmed and then go off sick again. You know, how it's managed will be really instrumental there. And then just ongoing support when somebody returns.
