National Sickie Day in tech: how to reduce absences

According to workplace app Blind, burnout among tech professionals increased from 61% in February 2020, to 73% in May as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened. Tech employees in particular, have been under increased pressure to perform. With most of the UK workforce locked down at home, companies have come to rely on technology to maintain business operations.

The first Monday in February marks the day when the highest number of workers call in sick, coining the term ‘National Sickie Day’. This year, awareness of the day is more important than ever. With the UK Government having extended the period for sickness self-certification to 28 days, CWJobs is encouraging employers to embrace a wider discussion on employee wellbeing and mental health in the UK tech industry.

The impact of sick days on the tech industry

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that 38.8 million working days were lost to work-related ill health in 2019/20 with each person taking around 7.6 days off work. Stress, depression or anxiety, and musculoskeletal disorders accounted for the majority of lost days.

According to absence management software company Edays, technology firms are facing the highest unplanned absence rate of any industry. When we consider that UK workers have increased their working week by almost 25%, it’s no surprise to see that the tech industry has the highest absence rate. Long working hours, excessive workloads, and job insecurity from IR35 and Brexit are some of the factors that are often cited as contributing to workplace stress in the tech industry.

When workplace absence becomes too frequent, it can negatively impact the productivity of internal teams, as well as employee engagement and motivation. This also has a wider impact on the company, affecting their customer experience, ability to meet deadlines, and revenue.

How working from home is impacting sick days

Although working from home can create a better work-life balance, research suggests that it encourages people to work even when they’re unwell. Presenteeism is becoming an increasing concern in the tech industry with workers often expected to be available at any hour.

The CIPD’s most recent Health and Wellbeing at Work report found that even pre-pandemic, 89% of professionals had observed presenteeism in their company over the past 12 months, with only a third taking action to tackle the issue.

Similarly, surveys conducted by RAND Europe find that 50% of workers have one stress-related condition, 50% have financial concerns, and up to 20% having serious financial concerns – all of which has contributed to presenteeism levels. The surveys found that 2019, over 30 days were lost per worker, per year due to presenteeism.

The importance of work-life balance

One of the principal ways tech companies can create a better work-life balance for their employees is to enable flexible working long-term. With the technology and logistics already in place, most companies are already in a strong position to roll out flexible working options for the foreseeable future.

Flexible working enables workers to create a schedule that works around their lives. It gives workers more control over how they manage their workload, and helps parents better manage childcare. For example, according to TrustRadius’ 2021 Women in Tech Report, 57% of women in tech feel burned out at work, compared to 36% of men.

Some of the reasons cited for this imbalance include additional responsibilities placed on women due to the pandemic, both at home and in the workplace. With flexible working, childcare responsibilities can be more easily shared between parents and other family members, reducing stress levels, the number of sick days taken and presenteeism.

At CWJobs, we’re big proponents of flexible working in tech. Moving forward, we’d like to see more companies offering flexible working options. Providing employees with the opportunity to work remotely, on their own terms (and not due to the pandemic), can encourage a better work-life balance.

According to a recent survey from employee engagement experts, Wildgoose, over 39% of people who work flexibly see a noticeable improvement in their mental health. Similarly, almost 43% of those who don’t have the option of flexible working, feel it would enable them to better manage their mental health.

The need for time off

With presenteeism on the rise, it’s important that employers encourage tech workers to take time off when it’s needed. Staff surveys can be a good way of gauging stress levels in a company and can help employers identify ways of supporting workers. It’s important for managers to acknowledge when their team is stressed and to raise the issue on a department or company-wide level.

In addition to encouraging workers to use their full holiday entitlement, employers could also increase the number of paid sick days employees can take in order to reduce presenteeism.

Organising wellness weeks can also provide workers with a much-needed rest from work. For example, companies like Hootsuite, and dating app Bumble recently gave their staff a whole week off to combat burnout.

How technology is helping to reduce sick days

Identifying employee burnout is challenging. However, in recent years, the tech industry has seen a rise in the use of absence management technology to check how many holidays workers have taken, or have booked in the future.

Software like MyHRToolKit, ad Breathe HR enables companies to alert employees who haven’t booked time off in a while. These platforms use data to identify trends and patterns in workers’ absences and holidays to help companies better plan for the future.

They can identify the most common days, weeks, and months that absences happen and the reasons behind them. In turn, absence management software helps companies identify when it’s time to take action to improve employee wellbeing.

CWJobs’ platform provides employers with the opportunity to showcase how their company supports employees’ mental wellbeing. Our premium job ads can also be used to highlight mental health support, work-life balance and flexible working policies.

In creating a company profile on our platform, employers can help candidates get a feel for what it’s like to work for the company. We also provide up-to-date market insights that reflect the thoughts and feelings of the UK’s tech workforce.