Staff taking more sick leave, increasing cost to economy by $1b - survey
www.rnz.co.nz
Employers are facing increasing costs for covering worker absences as employees take more time off due to illness.

A biennial workplace wellness survey by Southern Cross Health Society and BusinessNZ showed the average rate of absence was 5.5 days per employee over the course of 2022.

It compared to a range of 4.2 and 4.7 days between 2012 and 2020, and was the highest on record since the survey began in 2012.

…

Southern Cross chief executive Nick Astwick said Covid and the then mandatory seven-day isolation was a factor in the higher absences.

“But we also believe as we’ve moved the minimum leave entitlement from five days to 10 days, that’s also contributed to an increase of leave,” Astwick said.

“Some of the workforce - we don’t know how much - but some of the workforce see the 10 days as an entitlement and so we were expecting to see an increase, and we have,” Astwick said.

Though another thing to consider is that, at least in my jobs, when the 5 days were exhausted, you just ate annual leave days when you were sick - or you just brought the bug into the office.

So the change could be reflecting that 5 days was actually not enough (especially with young children who bring home minor illnesses frequently). The increase in average rates seems quite small given the doubling of the allowance.

There will be abuse, I’m not denying it, but allowing us to use sick-leave instead of annual leave so that we can actually get recreational time off seems a fair enough change.

  • liv
    101·
    10 months ago

    Though another thing to consider is that, at least in my jobs, when the 5 days were exhausted, you just ate annual leave days when you were sick - or you just brought the bug into the office.

    I think it’s this. We always just powered through it.

    About a decade ago I developed a sudden severe illness when I was on contract work with a certain University.

    After my 5 days were used up the University simply started docking 20% of my weekly pay for every day I was not able to come in.

    (Looking back on it, it was deeply unethical of them because I was not full time staff and they were docking me 20% even for days when I had no mandated hours. I was in no fit state to argue.)

    On the days when I actually had work hours, whenever it was even remotely possible I was dragging myself in to work and crawling around trying to do my job, because others depended on me. In that industry it’s just what you do if work won’t cover you.

    I was fainting, collapsing, falling over, crawling on the floor, all sorts of stuff. Or no pay. But that was just our culture back then. Presenteeism.

    Any step away from that is a step in the right direction.