The real cost of chucking a sickie

There’s nothing more Australian than chucking a sickie after a big day at the races or a massive grand final weekend.

But the cost to employers is massive and debilitating.

Employee absenteeism costs Australian business $44 billion a year. That’s around $3500 per worker per annum, or around $570 per sickie.

87% of employers believe at least one employee in their business will take a day off after a sporting event each year. This is disastrous for the employer, but stacked up all those unplanned absences are also disastrous for the economy.

However, most small business owners have a pretty tight relationship with their staff. When you work closely together every day, it follows that you’ll know a fair bit about each other, and what you like to do in your spare time.

So instead of putting your staff in a situation where they feel they need to lie to you in order to recover from staying up all night to watch the soccer world cup or the Tour de France, why not give them the time off that they want?

This way you can plan for their absence and mitigate its impact. Surely the cost to the business of having a staff member missing for a day in a planned way, will be less than the $570 each unplanned sickie costs you?

Posted in

Archives