Britain’s public sector needs a culture change (Image: Getty)
The sheer number of days people take off work for sickness is, well, just sick. Particularly in the public sector. According to the latest Labour Force Survey, workers in the public sector take three times as many sick days as their commercial counterparts. The number of these days grew by close to 7% during the two years of the pandemic and has pretty much stayed there.
No wonder public-sector productivity is going backwards, with all this absenteeism. Yes, part of it is people with stressful or boring jobs being badly managed and working in poor conditions. Technology, or lack of it, plays a part too. But, let’s be honest, some folk are faking illness or exaggerating it to get a few days off.
This might sound callous, especially when it comes to anxiety and stress. Anyone who has experienced or witnessed full-on stress-related illness knows it is an appalling affliction. I’ve been lucky enough to dodge that bullet. But I have close friends who haven’t, and it’s clear to me that, when it gets bad, they can no more get out of bed than if they’d broken all four limbs.
Yet there are fakers. A recent survey from People Management found that a third of workers say they have “pulled a sickie”, and a Kantar survey (even the reported this one) shows that nearly nine million people fake sickness to take time off work. It all costs the UK billions a year, which, I think we can agree, we can ill afford to spend.
So, what’s the solution? Well, we can learn from one group that never “throws a sickie”, and that’s Britain’s four million or so self-employed workers. ‘Well, duh!’ you might say. ‘Of course they never throw a sickie. Who’d they be kidding?’ But that’s the point. The self-employed carry on, even when feeling as rough as old sandpaper, because they won’t get paid a penny unless they do.
As a self-employed writer and trainer (who’s never thrown a sickie) I’m guilty of turning up at a client when I shouldn’t. I once conducted a training session while suffering from a bout of horrific food poisoning, necessitating frequent visits to the bathroom for projectile vomiting while I set the delegates working on practical exercises. I’m no hero, but it never occurred to me to do anything else.
One of my nearest and dearest was a freelancer too. A barrister. In four decades of work, I reckon he was off sick for a total of two days. On one of them, he turned up at court only to be told by the judge that he was obviously too ill and was sent home. You might call it stupid. I call it dedication.
That’s what Britain’s public sector needs: a culture change towards what the self-employed do naturally, with the proviso that if you’ve got something really nasty and infectious, like the flu, stay at home, however brave you’re feeling.
I’d also say to public-sector organisations that there can be no diversity and inclusion training, or equality training, or microaggression training, until sickness days have been reduced by, let’s say, a quarter. And if that sounds harsh, consider this: a report a few years ago in HR Magazine found that over half of all sick days in the UK are illegitimate. Call them, not me.
Yes, of course employed people have a right to sickness benefit. But they also have a responsibility to the rest of us to take time off work only if necessary. It’s that balance between rights and responsibilities that’s skewed. All of us suffer the consequences.