According to research from AXA PPP healthcare, the cost of sickness absences for larger sized SMEs is £40,500 on average per year for businesses with 100 to 250 employees. The cost to micro-businesses with fewer than 10 staff is £3,500 a year.
The insurer’s research, which was carried out by Redshift Research among 500 SMEs in September, also found that larger businesses clock up more sick days per employee each year.
While micro-businesses of up to 10 staff have on average 5.2 sick days per employee per year, this increases to 6.8 days for companies with 100 to 250 employees.
The research also underlined trust issues between managers and employees.
Chris Jessop, managing director of Health Services at AXA PPP healthcare said: “Many staff say that calling in sick makes them nervous – even when they’re genuinely unwell.”
The survey found that three in five (60%) of bosses of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) do not always believe their employees when they phone in sick.
In addition, over a third of bosses (37%) admit to checking social media profiles of employees they suspect of “pulling a sickie”, and one in four bosses (25%) would have no reservations about asking colleagues to call and check on employees they think are lying about being ill.
AXA PPP healthcare said it is no surprise then that almost half of employees (46%) say they feel anxious about phoning their boss.
Jessop added: “The findings also show that smaller sized firms are more effective at managing sickness absence.
“This may be down to better communication and trust between bosses and employees that can come from working closely together. Larger sized businesses could learn a lot from their smaller counterparts when it comes to employer – employee relationships.”
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