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Reduction in Sickness Levels during the Pandemic

Peter

Hello,

I work for 2 local authorities and we have experienced a significant reduction in sickness across both organisations since lockdown. I am keen to hear from colleagues as to what their thoughts are on the reasons for this. The obvious reason is that many employess and managers have been working from home and this potentially has masked other absences but I'm interested in possible other factors?

Many thanks,

Peter

Parents
  • Hello Peter,
    Very much the same story. We have about 75 members of staff across four locations. We've had only one sickness absence since the lockdown in March which was a serious medical issue. The usual coughs, colds, stomach bugs etc. just haven't featured. I think the reasons include: lack of exposure to each other - so lack of illness, not having to get up, smarten up and commute if you do feel ropey and, as our surveys have shown, many have really enjoyed working at home and are very keen to prove how effectively they can work in that way. There has certainly been a sense of team community too with managers probably making more pronounced efforts to check in with staff remotely. I do wonder if the perhaps slower pace of life for some has led to them being less run down. That said, from personal experience with home schooling and a heck of lot of changing guidance to cope with in the early part of lock down - I found it a period of intense working, tense home situations and exhausting! Simply didn't have time to be off :-).
    I think many of our staff are overall very happy to be able to work at home and know we've put a lot of effort into making the return to workplace safe for them (on a Team A/B pod basis). I'm interested to see how sickness absence does or does not increase with that return.
    Helen
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  • Hello Peter,
    Very much the same story. We have about 75 members of staff across four locations. We've had only one sickness absence since the lockdown in March which was a serious medical issue. The usual coughs, colds, stomach bugs etc. just haven't featured. I think the reasons include: lack of exposure to each other - so lack of illness, not having to get up, smarten up and commute if you do feel ropey and, as our surveys have shown, many have really enjoyed working at home and are very keen to prove how effectively they can work in that way. There has certainly been a sense of team community too with managers probably making more pronounced efforts to check in with staff remotely. I do wonder if the perhaps slower pace of life for some has led to them being less run down. That said, from personal experience with home schooling and a heck of lot of changing guidance to cope with in the early part of lock down - I found it a period of intense working, tense home situations and exhausting! Simply didn't have time to be off :-).
    I think many of our staff are overall very happy to be able to work at home and know we've put a lot of effort into making the return to workplace safe for them (on a Team A/B pod basis). I'm interested to see how sickness absence does or does not increase with that return.
    Helen
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