Sickness monitoring
Since when did it become OK to text or email your employer to say you are going to be off sick? Now it appears many people don’t even put on an ill voice, just a few taps on the keyboard and press send.
Of course, most sickness absences are genuine but are you suspicious that some are really an excuse for a duvet day or a long weekend?
Bradford Index
The Bradford Index is a great way of seeing just how good or bad your company’s sickness record is. Look at your absence records for 2013. Using the following calculation, work out the Bradford Index scores for your employees:
Multiply the number of occasions they took time off ill by itself, and then by the total number of days off sick.
Sickness Monitoring in action
For example, let’s say you have 2 employees, Sam and Pat. Sam had to take 10 days off following an operation last year. Pat, for various reasons, took a total of 10 days off, over 5 different occasions.
| Name | Number of Occasions | Total Days off Sick | Bradford Index Sum | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam | 1 | 10 | 1 X 1 X 10 | 10 |
| Pat | 5 | 10 | 5 X 5 X 10 | 250 |
While I wouldn’t be worried about Sam’s sickness record, I certainly would want to find out more about Pat’s. In fact, I would want to look more closely at any score that reached 100.
Time to start acting
At the moment, if your Statutory Sick Pay bill exceeds 13% of class 1 Employer’s NI bill in the same tax month, you can claim repayment from the Government. From April 2014, you won’t be able to. Add to this the disruption caused by lots of unexpected absences and maybe its time to do something about your company’s sickness record.
You don’t have to put up with poor sickness records. Please contact me if you think this is a problem its time you tackled.
Categories Disciplinary, Sickness, Staff Performance