CIPD Health and Wellbeing At Work Report 2023
The CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) released their 2023 Health and Wellbeing at Work Report. The report which represents the views of 918 organisations and 6.5 million employees found that:
Employee Sickness Absence
The average rate of employee absence (7.8 days per employee or 3.4% of working time lost, per year) has risen by 2 days since October/November 2019 (5.8 days per employee) - the highest for over a decade.
Top causes of both short-term and long-term absence
Minor illness is most commonly responsible for short-term absence while mental ill health, musculoskeletal injuries, acute medical conditions and stress are the most common causes of long-term absence.
COVID-19 continues to impact sickness absence – it's the fourth main cause of short-term absence and 50% report their organisation has employees who have experienced, or are experiencing, long COVID in the last 12 months.
Stress and Mental Health
Mental health remains the most common focus of wellbeing activity. More organisations are using a range of approaches to support this including an employee assistance programme, mental health first aid training, wellbeing champions, access to counselling services and the promotion of flexible working options.
76% of respondents report some stress-related absence with heavy workloads and management style most commonly to blame.
78% of organisations are taking steps to identify and reduce stress. Two-thirds of these (66%) attempt to identify the causes of stress through staff surveys or focus groups.
Presenteeism and Leaveism
87% of respondents have observed presenteeism over the last year.
63% of respondents have observed some sort of leaveism, such as working outside contracted hours or using holiday entitlement to work, over the past 12 months.
41% are taking steps to discourage presenteeism and 35% are attempting to reduce leaveism.
Line managers need more training and support
Line managers play a key role in supporting people’s health and wellbeing including taking primary responsibility for managing short-term absence in 70% of organisations and long-term absence in 61%.
Lack of line manager skills and confidence is the most common challenge for employee wellbeing and ‘management style’ remains among the top causes of stress related absence.
68% provide line managers with tailored support and 59% provide some training in absence-handling.
Just over half of those taking steps to reduce stress provide stress management training for line managers (55%). Organisations are more likely to train mental health first aiders (66%) than managers (43%) to support staff with mental ill health.
Health and wellbeing through a stand-alone strategy
53% of organisations have a stand-alone wellbeing strategy.
69% of respondents report that senior leaders have employee wellbeing on their agenda.
43% continue to take measures to support employee health and wellbeing in the wake of COVID-19.
Most organisations take a holistic approach to employee wellbeing with mental health continuing as the most common focus.
Financial wellbeing is receiving increased attention as nearly three-fifths (57%) report their health and wellbeing activity is designed to promote financial wellbeing to a large or moderate extent.
More organisations have employee assistance programmes (EAPs) for all or some employees (2023: 84%; 2022: 74%).
Wellbeing provision through the employee lifecycle
46% of organisations now include provision for menopause transition ‘to a large or moderate extent’, up from 30% last year. Nearly a quarter (24%) have a standalone policy for menopause transition and a further 16% include provision as part of a wider policy.
More organisations now include provision for pregnancy loss compared with last year (37% ‘to a large or moderate extent’ compared with 26% in 2022).
Provision for issues such as chronic health conditions, suicide prevention, pregnancy loss and men’s health is more mixed.
Few organisations currently have policy provision for menstrual health (15% in a standalone policy or as part of another policy) but 19% report they plan to introduce a policy.
The full report can be found here.
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