Long-term employee sickness presents a number of problems for businesses.

According to HR website People Management, almost half of UK businesses say that long-term sickness absence is a big issue for their organization and have concerns over their ability to manage it, a report has found.



The Aviva absence management report found that 45% of UK businesses are worried by their ability to handle long-term absence. Top concerns included placing a burden on other workers (40%), lost productivity (27%), lost revenue (22%) and diminished service standards (21%). Meanwhile, 17% said that when staff are away on long-term sickness absence then other staff are also more likely to fall sick.

In contrast, 53% of organisations described themselves as well equipped to deal with such absence. Top methods used included encouraging staff to have a better work-life balance (37%), offering private medical insurance (22%) or group income protection (13%) and offering training to spot the signs of stress (20%).

Steve Bridger, Head of Group Risk at Aviva UK Health, said: “Sickness absence not only has a knock-on effect to other employees, but adds to the business concerns of employers as a whole. While it is encouraging that employers are implementing preventative measures to help them control the effects of sickness absence, take-up of one of the most effective solutions - group income protection - is still relatively low.”