| By :
Martin Hofschroer
Companies must do more to beat workplace stress because it is the most common cause of long-term absence. Research by the CIPD and Simplyhealth revealed that 35 per cent of employers said that stress was the main reason for long-standing nonattendance in the last year. The study discovered that stress was more prevalent in the public sector as 73 per cent of manual and 79 per cent of non-manual businesses stated that stress is one of the most five common causes of work absence. These figures are higher than the average across all sectors of 51 per cent and 63 per cent respectively so public sector businesses may benefit from performance improvement services to help them attain world-class performance and service levels. Public sector employees are also more likely to miss work due to sickness compared to their private sector counterparts as they take three days' more sick leave on average. CIPD Adviser Dr Jill Miller said that public sector employees are likely to be more stressed because they have public facing roles in jobs such as social work, policing, teaching and nursing. She said; "They often have to deal with people in difficult and emotionally charged situations, putting pressure on their time and resilience." Dr Miller warned employers to look out for and manage "presenteeism", when workers turn up when they are actually ill. She added: "Sometimes workers have a loyalty to the service users, or don't want to let their teams or managers down. "But presenteeism needs to be carefully managed. We don't want to make colleagues ill or for them to come in while unwell and perform poorly." Dr Miller went onto say that the recession had impacted on absence levels as 38 per cent of employers have reported a marked increase in workers suffering from mental health problems like anxiety and depression. She said that the government should introduce a review of management development spending in the public sector to improve leadership and management in order to close the sickness gap. Badenoch & Clark have said that the majority of public sector workers are concerned that their skills will not transfer to private companies if they are made redundant as a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review. The firm discovered that 56 per cent of employees in the public sector who would consider moving to a private firm fear they lack the appropriate skills to do so.
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