Avoid National Sickie Day in Your Office

The first Monday in February has been dubbed National Sickie Day as it’s the day when thousands of people are expected to ‘pull a sickie’.

Now, it IS winter and people do, obviously, fall ill. But, according to this article in the Independent, a whopping 375,000 people called in sick on national sickie day, with an estimated loss of £34 million in productivity in the UK.

How to Avoid National Sickie Day

In the Independent article, reasons for calling in sick ranged from simply pretending to be ill to claiming to attend a funeral. But there must be an underlying reason. Why might your employees rather pretend to be ill and lie to you on the phone than come to work?

Because they’re in a job they’re not happy with.

Whether the job is simply not right for them or whether it’s the way they are treated, something’s not right. It’s worth looking at their responsibilities and your expectations of them. It’s not easy, but it’s good practice to take a critical view on what you might be doing to make their job less than fun. Check out this post and see if any of it rings true in your organisation.

As always, prevention is better than cure and the best way to avoid absenteeism is to hire right in the first place.

When you hire someone you need to focus on values, as well as skills. You should aim to find people who have the work ethic that fits with your organisation. That way, they’ll be happier in their work and not as likely to stay in bed on the first Monday in February!

How many of your employees made it in today? All of them?… Or do you have one or two off sick?

Make sure you hire right, every time.

At Gotcha, we help businesses find the right person for the job. However, not all businesses are ready to outsource their recruitment right now. To help those who want to do it themselves, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to recruitment. It walks you through the recruitment steps, tells you what NOT to do and what you MUST do.