Sickness absence costing waste sector up to 70m

Worker absence due to ill-health could be costing the waste and recycling industry as much as 70 million a year, a study by the Health & Safety Executive has estimated.

This equates to around 100 in direct costs to an organisation for a single day of absence, although this cost is potentially double that if indirect costs through loss of productivity are included.

The report states: Given this, even reducing the burden of sickness absence by as little as 10% (leading to a potential financial saving of around 7 million across the entire sector) is by no means insignificant.

The findings come in the HSE study National survey of the burden of sickness absence in the waste and recycling industry, which shows that 10.3 working days per worker were lost to work-related ill-health each year in the sector.

Of this number, around 2.4 days per worker per year might be attributed to work-related factors, the HSE said, which is the equivalent of 360,000 days. HSE estimates that approximately 23% of all days of absence in the industry study might be work related.

HSE has no directly comparable figure for the average number of days lost to sickness absence for all UK sectors. However, according to the Office for National Statistics, 4.4 days were lost to sickness absence per worker in the UK in 2013.

Absences

The three-year HSE study based on a survey of 28 local authorities and four private sector organisations, collectively employing around 7,700 workers also found that long term absences of greater than 20 days contributed to 60% of working days lost in the sector.

According to HSE: This suggests either that the ill health underlying long term absences is inherently more common in waste and recycling workers, or that returns to work following prolonged absence are less well managed by line managers in the waste and recycling sector, resulting in more prolonged periods of absence than perhaps necessary.

Mental health complaints (34.1%), physical injuries (21.9%) and musculoskeletal disorders (16.6%) were the most significant ill-health contributors to long term absence, with the report adding that these are all ill health complaints where work related causes are distinct possibilities.

Furthermore, the contribution of stomach complaints to the number of days of sickness absence in the industry was found to be 12% – higher than the UK average of 8% across all sectors.

However, the study found the average number of absence days for waste and recycling workers employed by local authorities each year (13.7 days) to be more than double the average number in the private sector (6 days).

Data

The highest number of absences by worker activity was found to be refuse collection, which accounted for 45.3% of absences in the sector per year, although workers undertaking this activity for local authorities also made up the majority of those in the study.

Also, the report concedes that the number of private sector organisations taking part in the study was lower than targeted, meaning that a number of waste work activities were poorly represented in the study dataset.

This, the report states, was particularly true for workers involved in waste composting, total waste management activities and driving of tankers.

And, the report adds that the quality of data provided by some participating organisations was on occasions poor.

Conclusions

Overall, HSE said the findings support the multifaceted nature of sickness absence, concluding that both good and less good practices exist across the sector due to the variable success of practices used to manage sickness absence by study participants.

And, although investigation of potential measures to manage sickness absence was outside the scope of the study, HSE said that this may well be an informative exercise to undertake in future.

The report concludes: It is likely that measures to promote healthier lifestyles and improved health and wellbeing will be of particular benefit in waste and recycling workers, perhaps helping reduce the rates of long term absences observed for these workers in particular.

Last month, the HSE released its provisional fatality numbers for 2013/14, showing that four workers in the waste and recycling industry died last year, as well as one member of the public (see letsrecycle.com story).