New research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) and Simplyhealth has found that sick leave has hit a 10-year high with stress being one of the contributors to this rise.

The CIPD found that workers were off work for an average of 7.8 days over the past year, which has increased from 5.8 days in 2019 and is now the highest rate since 2010.

One of the biggest factors for this rise was recurring cases of Covid-19 and long Covid, with 50% of employees stating they’ve experienced or are currently experiencing long Covid. And more than a third of organisations involved in the study reported that Covid-19 was still one of the main reasons behind short-term absences from work.

Analysing absences in more than 900 organisations (representing 6.5 million employees), the CIPD also found that stress was the main cause behind long-term sick leave: 76% of respondents reported they’d taken time off work due to stress in the past year alone, with the most common reason being heavy workloads (67%) followed by management style (37%) and pressure to meet targets and deadlines (25%).

However, non-work factors, such as relationships and family, are also among the most common causes of stress-related sick leave.

Over three-quarters of respondents said that their organisation is taking steps to identify or reduce stress in the workplace but there still seems to be a gap between employer support and work absences.

When it comes to presenteeism – people feeling unwell but still going to work – most people were aware of others working when ill, both in the workplace and at home. And 63% reported some sort of leaveism – people using annual leave to work or when they’re unwell – in their workplace.

Simplyhealth’s Claudia Nicholls said: “The CIPD report findings show us that there is a workplace wellbeing paradox where, despite an increasing number of workplace health and wellbeing services being put in place, employees have an increasing number of mental health issues.”

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