Feeling a bit off today boss

[Jon Masters]

Taken from the BBC business website:

UK bosses suspect that one in eight of all UK workplace absences are due to staff faking illness, research by the CBI suggests.
Managers told the CBI they believed many employees faked illness to take a Monday or Friday off work.
It said employers must clamp down on staff taking "sickies" which it said cost the economy about 1.6bn.
About 400 employers were surveyed. They said they believed that 12% of days off taken by workers were not genuine.
But in response, the TUC said that "unsympathetic" bosses meant many ill employees went to work.
The survey suggested there was a correlation between absences and major sporting events.
Overall workplace absence, including genuine illness, cost the economy about 13.4bn in 2006, the CBI added.
Workers took an average of seven days off sick in 2006, it said. This was about half a day more than in the previous year and equated to the loss of 175 million working days. Public sector workers had the highest average absence at nine days per worker. This was 44% higher than in the private sector, despite government efforts to trim the number of days taken off sick, the CBI said.
Some workers felt they had the right to use sickies to give themselves a long weekend or a longer holiday, said the CBI's director of human resources policy, Susan Anderson. As well as the financial burden, this put pressure on colleagues, she said. "Everybody gets sick and employers understand that most absence is genuine," Ms Anderson said. "It is in no-one's interest if staff come to work when they are not well," she said. "But there is a culture of absenteeism in some workplaces that must be addressed."

The variation in absenteeism showed that some firms were managing the problem better than others, she added.

So, is the image that the UK is a nest of ne'er do wells who skive off work at the slightest excuse correct ? Or do we struggle on with a stiff upper lip most of the time and its just the odd few who let the side down ?
I heard it suggested on the radio that everytime someone is off sick, even for a day, they should have an interview with their employer. BB gone mad, or a sensible way of spotting the shirkers? And what about the idea that some companies have of 'duvet' days ?

Please only post your opinion if you're not skivving off work at the moment

[WhiteCrow]

Please only post your opinion if you're not skivving off work at the moment

D'oh!

Although I'm off work using today as a leave day - as I couldn't face going in today (wife has been very unwell last couple of days and I haven't slept much).

[Lissa]

There is a very clever Dilbert comic strip where the Pointy Haired Boss is horrified when presented with the statistic that 40% of all sick days are on Mondays and Fridays.

I've only been off sick once in the last three years and I wasn't entirely honest about the reason - I said I was throwing up because I'd got some kind of bug but really I'd taken an overdose and it screwed everything up (though ultimately not fatally).

[Si Hunt]

It's the same as with anything in life - there are those of us that are honest and sensible and those that either shirk or mistreat themselves leading to masses of time off work.

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

I'm too honest to wag it off work plus the fear of a 'return to work' interview with our boss scares the living daylights out of me

I know of people who feign illness to get off work though. Shameful.

[Captain Tancredi]

The worst thing I've ever done was to convince myself as much as my manager that a cold plus tiredness equalled something more serious. The only times I can remember being off sick in this job have been for a sickness bug and a nasty flu-type bug about a month ago.

[Si Hunt]

If I have a cold, I stay home. One of the benefits of only being ill about 1% of the time, is that you don't feel bad about doing that - so about once a year when I get a cold I stay home with the tissues and Lemsip. I shake it off much quicker and don't annoy everyone in the office by passing it on.

Si.

[Paul Clement]

It's the same as with anything in life - there are those of us that are honest and sensible and those that either shirk or mistreat themselves leading to masses of time off work.

Si, it's never as black or white as that. I had twenty days off when my back went as a result of a slipped disc. I certainly didn't mistreat myself, causing this to happen, and I have colleagues who I work with who have been off sick due to work related stress, again, they haven't mistreated themselves either. I'll admit that there are a number of people who shirk off a few days, but you can't justifiably state that the rest of the people who have time off are off for self-inflicted reasons.

[Captain Tancredi]

Might be a couple of sickies in our place tomorrow- I volunteered to stay tonight and help with a disaster recovery exercise, which basically involved staying late while our IT people in Glasgow closed down our processing system, let it go cold and then started it up again. Fair enough, except that I started at 8 this morning and it was 7.30 before the systems restarted- most of us called it a day at 9, but something went haywire with one of the systems so some people were having to stay until 10.30 at the earliest until it was sorted out.