Swine flu absence set to cost business £8.6 billion
By David Woods Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Swine flu could cost UK business £8.6 billion through staff absence.
Further Reading
- Flu costs the British economy £1.35 billion
- Swine flu: Local councils are failing in their duty to help small firms prepare for an epidemic
- Forcing swine flu vaccinations on staff could be a legal minefield for employers
- Swine flu: Employers prepared to close their premises to stop spread of virus
- Swine flu: A quarter of employers not fully prepared for changes to sickness self-certification
- Working Time regulations implementation should be postponed because of swine flu implications
- Government must help SMEs cope with swine flu, says Federation of Small Businesses
- British Chambers of Commerce to host swine flu interactive web seminar
- Swine flu mass staff absence could relieve companies of their contractual obligations
- Swine flu call-centre to open in London offering 800 temporary jobs - including HR roles
- Swine flu: Employers could face fines for not protecting staff from the virus
- CIPD backs plans to allow staff with swine flu to self-certificate for up to 14 days
- Health and wellbeing: Healthcare provision - Healthy competition
- One in 10 employers still not prepared for swine flu
- Don't panic over swine flu, TUC boss warns
- How should HR departments handle fears of a swine flu pandemic?
- Employee who may have been in contact with swine flu is asked to work from home
- Increase in numbers calling in sick with coughs, colds and flu following swine flu pandemic reports
According to absence management company FirstCare, employees infected with the swine flu virus take an average of 4.3 days off work. And with managers forced to released staff to care for ill relatives or children, the costs are adding up for employers.
Last week 177,000 staff took time off with swine flu symptoms compared with 80,000 the week before.
Aaron Ross, chief executive of FirstCare, said: "Employees with swine flu are only taking, on average, 4.3 days off work but the requirement to care for dependants and being forced to stay away from the office after coming in direct contact with confirmed cases is resulting in the average absence length increasing to, in some cases, over 8 days - almost double the usual absence rate of a UK employee.
"Over the past seven days we have seen the number of absences related to cough, cold and flu-like symptoms triple to one in every 200 employees. While these numbers may not seem too large at the moment, if the infection rate continues along the aggressive growth curve we saw last week, it could result as many as one in five workers being affected by early August.
"Most organisations have some form of business continuity plan in place. However, they are generally designed to tackle single, short-lived events; with swine flu we are going to see a long period of significant absence. The recent rise in cough, colds and flu and the infection rates should ring alarm bells for employers."
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