WHAT COULD save the taxpayer millions, improve employers’ bottom lines and benefit thousands of workers? A better system for getting injured or ill staff to return to work.
This is the assessment of industry experts who warn that, as the recession bites, more sectors are being affected by worker illness. Absenteeism costs the State and businesses €1.5 billion a year, according employer groups.
A survey of small businesses this year revealed a high level of employer scepticism about sick leave. The survey, by the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, labelled more than 80 per cent of absenteeism as “feigned illness or malingering”.
Unions say this figure is wrong, and blame poor workplace conditions for causing injuries and sickness. “If people have to take sick leave they want to get back to work quickly. They can’t afford not to,” says a union spokesman.
Meanwhile, workers who have been ill and taken time off are often marginalised and forced to seek help from the State.
Stress-related illness is becoming more common, and a growing number of industries are affected by this trend – most recently banking and the IT sector, according to Beverley Webster of rehabilitation firm Webster Lawlor Associates, which helps businesses get ill employees to return to work. “In the past, we dealt more with people physically injured in areas such as construction,” she says.
Official EU surveys show Irish workers take the second-lowest number of sick days in the pre-accession 15 member states, according to a spokesman for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
However, both unions and employers recognise the importance of helping staff with long-term illnesses to return to work.
An Irish Business and Employers Confederation report into absenteeism recommends flexible working arrangements, health initiatives, counselling and regular contact between employers and ill staff members.
Webster says many employers focus on what to do when a staff member returns to work, rather than how to get them back.
“The employer tends to adopt an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach,” she says.
“Even if the employer does want to help, they often don’t have the expertise to know what to do and how to do it. And they have a fear – understandable – of being hit with a compensation claim.”
The rehabilitation company charges about €3,500 to help get an employee back into the workforce. Expensive as that sounds, it is cheaper than the alternative: long absences, and the cost of hiring and training a replacement.
“The longer someone stays off sick, the harder it is for them to get back into the loop,” says Webster, adding that “60 per cent of people out 26 weeks or longer will never go back”.
There are two ways to tackle absenteeism and its cost, according to the Webster Lawlor firm.
The first is to make provisions to keep people at work, and the second is to get people who are absent back to work in a safe and timely manner.
The firm advises employers to take fast action to tackle the issue. “Sadly,” says Webster, “we are often called in late – usually by a firm’s insurance company.”
