Men’s health centre

Top areas for 'sickies' revealed

19^th July 2011 - Many people have 'thrown the odd sick day' by ringing into work with a fake cold or other excuses, but the scale of the skiving is uncovered in a new survey.

Researchers for PwC spoke to 1190 working people to find out if and why they were taking 'sickies'. They also found big regional differences in the likelihood of workers skiving off.

Excuses, excuses

36% said they'd taken time off work and lied about the reason. 34% said they'd be more likely to bunk off if colleagues were doing the same.

One or two days may not bother a boss, but the survey found skivers thought they could get away with taking five days off before their employers became suspicious.

Most people still phone in themselves with their excuses, but there were other tricks. 9% got someone else to phone. 5% now text their excuses. Email was also popular - especially sending the email before anyone else gets into work.

Skivers also admitted to setting the groundwork for a sickie, by pretending to be ill in advance by sniffing, losing their voice or even limping. Some even admitted to using bandages or crutches as props.

Made up illness

Fake illnesses were the most likely excuse, for 83% of skivers. The top five were:

• Vomiting or diarrhoea (49%)
• Flu (15%)
• Migraine (8%)
• A cold (8%)
• Food poisoning (5%)

Other favourites were pretending to have sick relatives, family tragedies, medical appointments and things being delivered to their homes.

Some unusual excuses included falling out of the loft and runaway pets.

Regional differences

Across the UK, there were different attitudes to skiving. The top five regions for sickies and other excuses were:

• North west of England (47%)
• London (44%)
• Scotland (37%)
• West midlands (36%)
• East midlands & Northern Ireland (32%)

At 29%, people in Wales were least likely to skive.

Why skive?

When the skivers were asked why they do it, the top five reasons were:

• Bored and depressed at work, or depressed by work (61%)
• Family responsibilities (21%)
• Hangover (18%)
• "I’ve been working hard, I deserve it." (15%)
• Job hunting (11%)

PwC HR consulting partner Neil Roden says in a statement: "Absenteeism costs British Business around £32bn a year, but our findings suggest a large chunk of this loss is preventable. If people are bored and depressed with their jobs, employers need to think creatively how they can get people back in gear. Rather than a sign of laziness, unwarranted leave can mean people are under-used."