On `National Sickie Day’, research by a Suffolk-based insurance broker reveals that one third of workers admitted to ‘pulling a sickie’ last year.

%image(15290895, type="article-full", alt="Dominique Fell-Clark head of marketing at PolicyBee said: �The amount of people that �pulled a sickie� was surprising." Picture: POLICYBEE")

PolicyBee’s research found that the most common cover story for ‘pulling a sickie’ was having a sickness bug whereas in fact most were actually suffering from a hangover and were at home resting in bed, instead of being at work.

Brightwell Barns based PolicyBee conducted an online survey and some of the answers were surprising.

Dominique Fell-Clark head of marketing at PolicyBee said: “The amount of people that ‘pulled a sickie’ was surprising. The impact of staff absenteeism on productivity is significant and can put considerable pressure on the other staff in the office. Illness is part and parcel of day to day life, but if staff are faking illness because they don’t want to come to work it highlights there could be a problem with staff morale. For small businesses this can have a huge impact on service levels.

“What is interesting is that the survey findings show a direct link between employee benefits and the propensity to ‘pull a sickie’. This supports the theory that the more you make your employees feel valued, the more invested they are in the success of the organisation.”

PolicyBee now sells the health and wellbeing support package Equipsme and provides the cover to its own staff.

Designed to be affordable and easy to understand, Equipsme provides businesses with two to 249 employees a flexible and cost-effective way of providing health and wellbeing support for their employees.

Other findings include:

Nearly one quarter of respondents stated that they have had to take sick days due to stress at work.

Under half of those surveyed had employers that offered employee benefits like health insurance, mental health support and duvet days.

73% of respondents said that an employee benefits package would make them happier at work.

94% said that a good employee benefits package makes a prospective employer more attractive.

Health insurance was the most common employee benefit received by the respondents whose employer provided staff benefits.

Just over one third of those surveyed that had never ‘pulled a sickie’ had an employee benefits package provided by their employer.

And 75% of respondents took at least one day off sick in 2018.