Health

Out of office

February 19, 2014

Europe

February 19, 2014

Europe
Sara Mosavi

Former editor

Sara is a Policy and Research Manager at UK Commission for Employment and Skills working on issues such as youth unemployment, productivity, apprenticeships and further education. Prior to this, Sara worked as an Editor with The Economist Intelligence Unit's Thought Leadership team for over three years researching projects on educuation, talent, risk management and organisational behaviour. Sara holds a MSc in International Public Policy at UCL and read Italian and Linguistics at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

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Why read this report

  • Our research brought to light a complex web of national regulatory frameworks determining how sick leave cover is to be split between the employee, the employer and the state. In each country, benefits are determined by a different range of factors, including age, length of service and sector.
  • Offering very limited sick leave benefits or none at all can help to lower rates of workplace absenteeism. The savings made, however, need to be assessed in light of more employees going into work despite being ill.
  • Workplace improvements can help employers reduce the number of sick days. These include redesigning the workspace to suite the demographics of their workforce; providing easy and quick access to healthcare once employees fall ill; and offering access to counselling.

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