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Has anyone looked at their sickness absence rates for 2020? I've just looked at ours (to end of October, actually) and they are 35% down on the same 10 months of 2019.
Has anyone else seen similar?
If so, how do you explain it? My possibly hypotheses are that there is just less other sickness around - that is, 'lockdown', in addition to suppressing Covid, is suppressing colds, flu, etc. and secondly that we are almost entirely working from home and someone that might have taken a whole day off in 2019 now does something bookable for at least part of the day while at home, so what would have been a whole day off now becomes a few hours off.
I'm assuming a third possibility - that there's nothing else to do so fewer people just bunking off, doesn't actually happen that much and is not part of the effect.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Your hypothosis seems entirely plausable
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Rank: Super forum user 
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There is also no "ripple" effect seeing poorly colleagues in the office and then feeling unwell. Having watched Britains Wildest Weather 2020 - the best "bunk off" days were during the lock down
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Rank: Super forum user
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There is also no "ripple" effect seeing poorly colleagues in the office and then feeling unwell. Having watched Britains Wildest Weather 2020 - the best "bunk off" days were during the lock down
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Rank: Super forum user
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To me, other causes may be linked to closed bars/hotels cancelled flights etc, so no Monday morning hangovers, or extended weekend breaks etc.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Another possibility is that those who are working from home may be more likely to work through sickness, both because they can have a less demanding day working at home (possibly not working very much), and because no one says "You're ill, you should go home".
In some organisations there was an existing culture of working from home when you were ill with a cold or similar. This stopped it spreading in the workplace and gave the ill person a more comfortable and less pressured environment, as well as taking out what might be a demanding journey when ill (and possibly not fit to drive).
Not that it was necessarily the right thing for them to be working at all, but when sick pay is limited or when sickness levels trigger automatic disciplinary action, of course people work when they are ill.
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Rank: Forum user
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nothing worse that the martyr who comes in flu'd up to the eyes to prove their commitment to the company or how brave they are... yeh thanks... pass it around the office so we're all ill and then take it home. I'll look into ours, but it will be awkward as 90% of our staff were on furlough from March to July. Our office staff is only 7 out of 90 as the rest are on construction sites, so that skews it a little as no option to work from home
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 1 user thanked craigroberts76 for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Originally Posted by: craigroberts76  nothing worse that the martyr who comes in flu'd up to the eyes to prove their commitment to the company or how brave they are... yeh thanks... pass it around the office so we're all ill and then take it home.
I think it's safe to say the change in behaviour has had/will have a significant effect. If you consider most of us do more socialising at work than anywhere else, eight hours a day in close proximity, I would argue that presenteeism causes a lot of transmission. It might be argued this is data we can use to discourage the practice of automatic disciplinary action.
Of course, contrast that with the lack of hospital proceedures for injuries and routine operations. That may have extended leave for routine procedures. There's always an up and a down side!
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Rank: Super forum user
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Quite hard to do a proper analyse, but looking at it I have the following trends - For those that put "sickness or headache/stomach upset/cold or flu/chest or breathing difficulties" I have 40% of 2019 levels. As a caveat we were fully closed for 5 weeks and partially (50% workforce) for a further 8 weeks. If we compensate for that I get that we have roughly 47% of 2019 levels, which sounds good. However if I then add in absences due to COVID-19 (whether suffering or isolating) we have a 27% increase on 2019 figures, despite only having 3 people diagnosed, so far, with COVID-19. As a complete absence (pulled muscles/childcare/operations that sort of thing added too) we are at 44% of 2019 levels, but we having an aging workforce, and there was a lot of long term absences last year for various operations, which we obviously don't have happening this year (hip replacements etc.). So it is hard to get a good grasp of where the figures have gone, but it does look like we are suffering far less "spreadable" illnesses. However, the impact of COVID-19 will probably be felt in next year's figures when the routine ops start again. And the impact of the isolation has been worse than the benefit in relation to spreadable illnesses (which calls into question whether absenteeism in our workplace is an issue). (guess who is doing the end of year report)
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