Sickie Monday - did you notice a high number of sick workers?

Posted by Charlie Duff in Managing people, Business lifestyle on Mon, 01/02/2010 - 15:02

Some 350,000 British employees are estimated to have called in sick to work on 'Sickie Monday' (the first Monday in February), costing businesses around £30 million in lost revenue.

 

According to research by the Employment Law Advisory Service (ELAS), 25% of employers now accept emails or text messages from staff to say they are ill, instead of the traditional phone call, making it easier for employees to fake it.

ELAS’s Peter Mooney said: “The traditional phone call was always a way for bosses to decipher whether staff members were bluffing or genuinely ill.

“But now, as our research shows, many employers are dispensing with it, which leads me to think that the system will be open to more abuse than ever”.

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Editor's Welcome

 

Hello! And welcome back as we enter 2012, with a busy year ahead of us all. With talk of double-dip recessions, a possible partial or even full break-up of the Eurozone and unemployment rates set to hit nearly 9%, topics such as organisational streamlining, staff resilience and talent management are likely to be on many an HR professional's lips over the next 12 months.
 
But to lighten the gloom here in the UK, we also have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and its attendant public holidays to look forward to at the start of June. Followed by two weeks of Olympic Games from 27 July to 12 August and the Paralympics from 29 August to 9 September, each generating their own excitement, but also issues to work through for hard-pressed HR departments trying to sort out the multifarious staffing issues in advance.
 
So with an interesting but challenging year to come, HRZone promises to be with you, supporting you all the way and providing our usual insightful blend of news, analysis, community blogs and expert comment to help you sort the wheat from the chaff. As ever, we love to hear from you too so feel free to either post your words of wisdom to our blog section yourself or, in the case of longer, more in-depth ‘expert voice’ articles, drop me a line with any ideas to cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk.....
 
Cath Everett
HRZone Editor 
 
 
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