Handy stats on sickness absence - how does your workplace
measure up?

The latest CIPD Annual Report was published in August. Use the table below to see how your absence levels measure up to the average for your sector. If you would like more information, see the full report www.cipd.co.uk Or, for a handy guide to calculate the costs of stress related absence in your organisation, email me putting stress costs in the subject field frances@brightsparktraining.net

Notes: * public services other than health, education, central & local government.

1. The public sector continues to have much higher levels of employee absence in comparison to the private sector at 3.3 more days per employee per year. This adds to the pressure on public sector employers to make savings and improve public sector productivity and service levels.

Although in the past this gap has been attributed to the fact that public sector organisations are often much larger than those in the private sector, CIPD research shows that, in fact, public sector employers have higher levels of absence, regardless of size.

2. Stress remains the number one cause of long-term absence among non-manual employees, followed by acute medical conditions, mental ill health, such as clinical depression and anxiety, and musculoskeletal conditions. For manual workers, the causes of long term absence are similar.

3. The top three causes of work-related stress are workload, management style and work relationships.

4. Almost 40% of employers say the recession has increased their organisation's focus on reducing absence levels and costs, with 20% seeing an increase in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression in the past 12 months.

Birmingham hospital ordered to pay a health official £24,000 every year of his life as NHS tackles workplace wellbeing

A story that hit the headlines recently concerned a Birmingham hospital that was ordered to pay a health official £24,000 every year of his life plus a lump sum of £370,550. The order was made after the official successfully claimed that working in the NHS caused him stress. And with high absence levels, it’s not surprising that the NHS is embarked on a programme to improve the health and wellbeing of its staff.

In the NHS survey, staff, not surprisingly, felt that their state of health affected patient care. And of course it’s not only the NHS where the relationship with service users is affected by staff wellbeing. All businesses which have a strong customer focus are in the same position, including, of course, our schools and colleges. Which brings me to

brightspark is very pleased to be working with Derbyshire Local Authority at a series of conferences to be held over the coming months. Together with the HSE, we will be supporting head teachers and governors to develop stress risk assessments across Derbyshire schools as well as exploring the causes of stress for leaders and staff.

Two useful links for practical support on school wellbeing

• A stress test and wheel of wellbeing self assessment exercise- from the Teacher Support network www.teachersupport.info
• Manchester Health and Wellbeing in Education Conference 10-11th November – NEC, Birmingham. This event makes the link between student health, wellbeing and achievement. There’s also a focus of teacher wellbeing. www.healthwellbeingeducation.co.uk

In July last year, the Healthy FE programme was launched as a joint initiative between the 3 Departments of Children Schools and Families, Health, and Innovation, Universities and Skills. Although the programme is still in development stage the vision is clear:

“...for FE providers to have strong relationships with community partners to create a learning environment where positive well-being is the expectation for all, producing learners and staff who are confident, healthy, safe, emotionally resilient and personally fulfilled.”

I will be writing more about this in future newsletters. www.excellencegateway.org.uk

Finally, what are others doing to tackle workplace stress?

• Cycle to work. A large insurance company is paying its workers £10 per month if they cycle to work every day.
• Shared healthy lunch hours – a primary school is organising shared lunch times, where staff actually stop for a proper break and share healthy food. A great way to combat the weight gain that many experience when they return from active summer holidays. Especially important for women, as recent research points to a link (in women only) between obesity, alcohol use and depression.
• Unknit that brow! Get knitting - that’s the advice from health promotion specialist at NHS Highland in a new initiative. NHS employees are spending their lunch breaks knitting instead of grabbing a rushed sandwich. Described as “the new yoga”, knitting is a great way to take a break from work and enjoy some healthy social time with colleagues.
• Go Green. Houseplants in homes and workplaces can reduce eye irritation and stress, motivate employees, improve concentration, and increase work productivity (American Society for Horticultural Science) And now new research shows that plants in classrooms improve student levels of satisfaction with their "learning", "instructors' enthusiasm", and "instructors' organization". It’s especially significant apparently in classrooms where there are few windows or the environment is otherwise bleak. www.hortsci.ashspublications.org

That’s all for now!

And don’t forget to sign up for free wellbeing resources! Either sign up via my website: www.brightsparktraining.net/information.html
or email:
frances@brightsparktraining.net