Our popular blogger Steve Herbert discusses the conclusions that reflect on the investigation into this year's health and well-being
The CIPD's health and well-being of work survey published this month made of reading that gives reflection for HR professionals-because the message is that the lack of poor workforce has increased again.
The survey revealed that the average absence per employee, per year, is now 9.4 days. To put this number in context, the same survey (based on the data collected just before the arrival of the Pandemic here in the United Kingdom) revealed that the average absence in 2020 was only 5.8 days.
Thus, in a little more than half a decade, the average absence increased by 3.6 days per employee, per year. This is a level of 15 years in absence rate which is more than disappointing after the progress made in the 2010s.
Melants of health (COVVID)
The main difference is, of course, the pandemic.
Long Covid is a tote that covers many different conditions but is nevertheless a headwind for the health of many employees. And the coated locks have also led to many other linked health conditions – uncomfortable – unmatched and / or not treated. The two have added to the list of long -term health conditions that so many people in the British population have to face daily.
Covated problems did not stop there. Social isolation and mental wear of the coastal years have certainly caused complex mental health problems for many, and these problems are often difficult to recognize, isolate and treat.
Other problems
Other problems include simple reality that British workforce is aging – and quickly.
The research undertaken by the standard pension provider LIFE in 2024 suggests that in most business sectors, the average age of a worker increased by around 4 years between 1994 and 2024.
The same research also revealed that there were only 6 local authorities through Great Britain at the beginning of the century with an average age of 45 years or more. Barely twenty years later, this number had reached an astonishing 126.
It follows that there is now a much older active population than at the beginning of the century. As I wrote for Employer news Return January 2019The number of elderly workers (those aged 50 and over) increased from around 1 in 4 to 1 in 3 of the active population in the 2010s.
The pandemic may have temporarily slowed down this change, but these years are now behind us. It should also be noted that many people are now working longer, given the increase in the age of the state pension to 67 years for both sexes.
Fewer young workers
At the other end of the employee age scale, the supply of young potential workers also reduces.
The fertility rate in the United Kingdom (and indeed around the developed world) has been decreasing for many years and is now being held to 1.44 in Great Britain. This is well below the “replacement rate” of 2 children per woman, and even further from the 2.4 children supposedly by family myth based on the demography of the pyramid of the population of the last century (see my article From June).
Even if the birth rate was to suddenly increase (which is unlikely), it will take at least 20 years for future potential employees to enter the labor market. At the risk of lighting the blue touch paper from the political debate, without the continuous interior migration of young people to the United Kingdom, the working age of the population will only increase.
Manage bad health
The simple reality is that the active population is growing quickly and that elderly workers are statistically more likely to have one or more long -term health conditions.
It follows that the management of absences should again be at the center of HR thought in the years to come. A lack of response could see these disturbing rates of absence continue their upward trend.
Steve Herbert is the brand's ambassador for Occupational Health Assessment LTD And a veteran, award -winning, speaker and commentator on HR services and employees.
