{"id":1826,"date":"2014-02-03T09:07:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T08:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sjbealehrconsult.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2014-02-03T09:07:13","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T08:07:13","slug":"national-sickie-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sjbealehrconsult.co.uk\/blog\/national-sickie-day\/","title":{"rendered":"National Sickie Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Courtesy David Castillo Dominici\/Free Digital Images<\/p><\/div>\n

Today, the first Monday in February, is traditionally known as National Sickie Day as on this day the greatest number of employees phone in sick. \u00a0Last year over 350,000 employees did so. \u00a0With the consistently grey and wet weather that does nothing to lift the spirits many people will feel like having a day off to lengthen their weekend.<\/p>\n

Sickness absence in the UK costs employers millions of pounds and needs to be tackled. \u00a0The costs can include sick pay, salaries, lost overtime, reduced service and lost business.<\/p>\n

Many employees are allowed to email or text their bosses that they are not coming into work due to sickness. \u00a0Sickness absence policies should clearly state that the employee should phone in and speak to their manager within an hour of their shift starting and should not text or email \u00a0The employee should not be allowed to let someone else phone in for them. \u00a0The idea behind this, is that if someone is swinging the lead they might feel embarrassed to speak to their manager and tell a lie about their situation. \u00a0Hopefully they will think twice about calling in sick.<\/p>\n

Research done by ELAS last year highlighted a number of odd excuses for sickness absence:<\/p>\n