Employers must own up to their liability in Britain’s sick problem
Never mind “ho ho ho” – “hack hack hack” has been the festive sound heard by most of us this month as the red-nosed plodded to work like martyrs.
In the days leading up to Christmas, City executives bemoaned sitting near colleagues who were “hamming up the coughing and sneezing theatrics” despite admitting to “feeling terrible” and going in themselves.
If you weren’t sneezing over your turkey on Christmas Day then you must be the proud owner of the cold-weather holy grail – a good immune system. And for employers across the country, that really is the grand prize.
Britain is quite literally becoming the sick man of Europe as health-related issues drag on growth prospects.
More Britons than ever are neither in work nor looking for work because of long-term ailments, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said, but it is harder to count the cost of how working while sick impacts productivity.
Britain’s sick problem is likely to be far bigger than we realise. Around 2.6 million people are currently economically inactive as a result of long-term sickness, but many of those with less debilitating illnesses will have ploughed on despite feeling dreadful.
Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom says that when he polled 10,000 Americans in July most people who were sick that month said they worked through their illness and mostly in the office – a finding he calls “terrifying”.
A shortage of workers might be piling pressure on teams stretched too thin, but staggering into the office when sick is not the solution to Britain’s worker crisis.
There are hidden economic costs to stubborn presenteeism, aside from the obvious impact of spreading germs and creating a domino-effect. The sick who stumble in might get gold stars from their boss who clocks the loyalty, but it doesn’t mean that they are getting the job done or getting it done well.
Productivity tends to dip by about 40pc if an employee works while ill, consultancy Robertson Cooper concluded in October, with people inevitably more likely to make mistakes.
There’s an extent to which this odd performance dip is unavoidable – we can’t all have a duvet day whenever we feel a bit off – but repeatedly refusing to take a sick day will not cure sick Britain.
Studies have shown that persistently working through illnesses can increase the risk of burnout and depression, meaning those who soldier on through bouts of flu could eventually become so exhausted that they find it too difficult to focus on tasks or work at all.
One in 10 young people in the UK are currently too sick to work full-time, according to thinktank the Health Foundation, with mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression the most common cause.
Between 2019 and 2023, official data shows that the number of economically inactive working adults with depression or anxiety jumped 40pc to 1.35 million. An extra one million put depression or anxiety as their secondary reason for being unable to work, 50pc higher than in 2019.
This has had an enormous impact on the public purse. The rise in economic inactivity due to ill health, as well as people working with a health condition, has contributed to additional welfare costs of £6.8bn over the past year.
Experts warn of darker days ahead. The number of people set to live with long-term sickness is expected to rise 37pc by 2040, nine times the rate at which the working age population is forecast to grow (4pc).
The Health Foundation, which compiled the data, counts a work-limiting health condition as lasting longer than 12 months and affecting the type or amount of paid work an individual can do.
This can include depression, panic disorders, physical disabilities, learning disabilities, heart problems and other chronic or progressive illnesses. The government needs to take a serious look at why so many people are living in poor health and come up with a detailed prognosis.
Many people are still working, technically fine, but have been feeling unwell, overly stressed and disengaged for years. Labour shortages are a major barrier to economic growth, but so too is a workforce which is disconnected and distracted by their own ill-health.
Public services need to be drastically improved – official data shows that 39pc of workers waiting for NHS treatment feel that the wait has affected their job – but the private sector can also take the health of its workers much more seriously.
That doesn’t mean businesses can get away with just buying a couple of office treadmills and handing out free kombucha. They ought to make certain jobs a lot less rubbish by fundamentally improving key areas such as pay, job security, autonomy and work hours.
It is notable that high employment levels have not resulted in better job quality, with the same amount of people reporting low-quality work between 2010 and 2020, according to the Health Foundation.
Spending longer in low-quality work is associated with worse health outcomes and higher stress. Some studies have even shown that having a bad job can be worse for health than having no job at all.
Companies must take responsibility for the part they have to play in sick Britain. Winter germs are a part of life, but the background chatter about illnesses is only getting louder.
