How to cure the sickie culture

How to cure the sickie culture
Picture by Getty Images, Inc.

LAST year, one in five employees took a sickie, according to a poll by staff management consultants Onetest.

Nationally, this has cost $2 billion in the private sector and $5 billion in the public sector. About 2.7 per cent of the working population is on a sickie every day costing 22 times more than strikes.
Which is a significant amount considering that none of the people who took sickies was actually sick (see panel). Onetest managing director Steven Dahl says that most people take sickies because they are bored or they don't like their jobs.

"Most people leave a job because of their boss,'' he said. "They don't like their manager, which is probably the main reason they also take sickies.'' Those workers who are on high incomes and who have good relations with their employer are less likely to take sickies, Mr Dahl added.

"Those who do take sickies tend to be in retail, tourism and hospitality,'' he explains. "They are more transient and more younger than older. "But children also play a part, so workers with children or dependents tend to take more sickies, especially those with kids in primary school during the school holidays.''

Public holidays, the days after major sporting events and extreme weather are the most popular times for people to pretend to be sick.

In fact, the day after the running of the Melbourne Cup is regularly the most popular single day of the year for sickies, when the absentee rate is 20 per cent higher than usual.

He says employers can expect about 365,000 Australians will take sickies after Easter. But he believes that "cracking down'' on sickies can have a detrimental effect on the workforce and can result in such things as a lower work effort to theft or even sabotage.

He said Onetest has identified six ways to reduce sickies:

  • REMOVE workplace aversions by finding out what employees' everyday annoyances are and removing them. For example, make sure workers have the resources they need and relations between all workers are positive;
  • LET workers know the company will not accept sickies as normal practice and ask that when they are sick they should come back to work armed with a medical certificate;
  • MAKE sure the above policy applies to everyone, including the company management;
  • PAY workers a fair pay -- if you pay below the industry average, workers may try to "even out the balance" by taking sickies;
  • INTRODUCE flexible arrangements so that workers don't have to take a sickie for a legitimate responsibility such as caring for parents or children; and
  • REWARD high levels of attendance.

Reason to stay away
Onetest's survey of 5000 job seekers found one in five employees took a sickie last year. Most common reasons for sickies were:

  • To catch up on household chores
  • To take care of the children and/or elderly relatives
  • Exhaustion
  • Didn't want to face the boss/didn't like the boss/didn't like a co-worker.
  • To avoid a deadline
  • Stress
  • No one will notice (in other words there is poor supervision at work)
  • An attitude that the company `owes me'


The Daily Telegraph, March 27, 2007.