What can employers do about false sickness?
The survey highlighted strategies that employers could adopt to reduce the likelihood of unofficial absence. Just under half the respondents (43%), thought that their employers should introduce flexi-time to discourage them from taking unofficial sick days. A large percentage (62%) also like the flexibility involved with ‘Summer Friday’s’ whereby employees are able to leave work early during the summer season and make up time during the week. 38% suggested introducing ‘duvet days’ and 33% felt that being allowed to purchase additional holiday time would reduce the number of false sick days taken. Only 19% thought that being provided with more holidays would prevent them from taking a ‘sickie’.

The impact of absence on other employees
Generally staff viewed other people falsely taking time off sick in a negative light which impacted the work environment. Over half those surveyed (52%) felt that when a colleague called in sick it impacted productivity because there are fewer people to get the work done. This was closely followed by 48% of respondents who believed that it set a precedent that encourages other employees to follow suit when they are really not really sick, and 39% said they believed it affected employee morale. A smaller number (22%) thought it increased office stress.

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