Waste and recycling- Above average absence rate for waste workers

The report, commissioned by the HSE, was compiled between 2007 and 2008 from 16 local authorities. It discovered that the waste sector recorded more days off work than any other department within local government. It found that waste industry employees each had an average of 12.8 days absence, which is higher than the average figure of 9.6 days absence for local government workers. However, a disparity in documentation methods between different local authorities meant they were unable to accurately capture the reasons for absence.

To further strengthen the findings of the report, two private waste and recycling companies were included in the study. Employees for these firms reported an average of 13.2 days absence, this was higher than an average of seven days absence for private sector workers in other industries.

HSL statistician Dr Eileen Holmes said: “The research revealed some interesting findings and indicated there are higher rates of absenteeism in local authority waste workers than in the wider public sector.

“While we collected some useful data, we did find there were gaps in our knowledge because of various approaches to recording reasons for absence. These varied from a set of well-defined categories to free text fields depending on which local authority you asked. This meant it had not been possible to identify the most common reason for someone taking time off work and, it follows, to recommend measures to highlight and address those underlying causes.”

What makes us susceptible to burnout?

In this episode  of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.

We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.

Listen now!