A nationwide survey of sickness absence across the waste and recycling industry suggests that worker absence due to ill health could be costing the sector a staggering £72m each year.
The findings, published this week in HSE’s ‘National survey of the burden of sickness absence in the waste and recycling industry’, draws on three years’ research, with data collected from 28 local authorities and four private sector organisations, collectively employing around 7,700 workers.
The survey, carried out by the Health and Safety Laboratory, shows that the average number of working days lost to sickness absence for the workers covered in the research was 10.3 days.
Interestingly, statistics on working days lost, taken from data collected as part of the Labour Force Survey, reveal that of these 10.3 days lost, 2.4 days might be attributable to work-related factors.
HSE’s report notes that this 2.4 days figure provides an indication of the potential number of workdays lost per worker that could be saved by better health and safety practices across the sector.
The waste and recycling sector employs 150,000 workers and multiplying this figure for the total number of workers equates to around 360,000 working days lost to work-related ill health each year, according to the survey findings.
Drawing on data from the Confederation of British Industry, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and BUPA, HSE’s report notes that the direct cost of a worker being absent from work for a day typically costs an organisation around £100. However, this could potentially double if indirect costs of lost productivity are included.
The survey findings suggest that inadequate health and safety may cost the sector in Great Britain around £72m per year. HSE’s report adds that reducing the burden of sickness absence by as little as 10 per cent could lead to a potential financial saving of around £7m across the entire sector.
Measures to promote healthier lifestyles and improved health and wellbeing in waste and recycling workers would be a further benefit, adds HSE, and could reduce the rates of long-term absences observed for the workers in the survey.
For the full report, visit: www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr1008.pdf
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.
