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‘Monday sickness’ bad for business

‘I don’t like Mondays’ might have become a workplace anthem, but research reveals that there are serious issues associated with this unpopular day of the week.

If most people are completely honest, Monday is not a day they particularly look forward to. It is not surprising, then, that a study from Mercer shows that 35 per cent of sick leave is taken on a Monday, with attendance on the remaining working days climbing higher as the week progresses. In fact Fridays show the lowest sick leave rate, falling to just three per cent of the total.

This is interesting, as common sense tells us that ‘Monday sickness’ cannot be entirely due to increased illness and injuries. Instead it is more likely a symptom of the chronic conditions of low employee morale and employee engagement.

There are also suspicions that cases of Monday ‘sickness’ absence, which the study says is most often attributed to musculoskeletal problems, may actually be hiding unknown levels of stress. Employees would rather be thought to have pulled a muscle than to be struggling to cope with the pressures of their job.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has already announced that the cost of work-related mental illness was £28 billion – a quarter of the UK’s total sick bill. NICE calculates that 13 million working days are lost each year because of work-related stress, anxiety or depression.

These are serious issues for an employer as they may be more difficult to address than colds and flu and can certainly have an impact on productivity and therefore on the business bottom line. This highlights the real need for employers to be looking for ways to boost morale and to ensure that employees feel cared for, particularly in today’s demanding economic conditions.

The effects of the recession have become clear and employers are now generally taking a wider view of healthcare as part of their employee benefits provision. Most realise that while introducing a health cash plan is an immediate cost, the impact it has on raising workplace morale, and therefore productivity levels, can be significant.

Employees may be struggling to cope with managing their domestic budgets and worrying about the risks of redundancy. But an employer who is prepared to invest in the wellbeing of his team can offer reassurance by providing a cash plan that includes a 24-hour counselling and advice line, and optical, dental and therapy treatment benefits.

So, employers should not just accept that their employees might not like Mondays. Instead they can look into employee benefits packages and demonstrate that they care about the health and wellbeing of their staff. This could help them to lift productivity and reduce sickness absence levels.

More information about Westfield Health’s cash plans is available on this website. 

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