One in three Aussies primed for Easter, Anzac Day sickie snatch

AUSSIES are primed to snatch not one extra-long weekend, but two mini-breaks. And all you have to do is make one awkward phone call.

WORKPLACES are gearing up for a flood of sickies on Monday, April 24, fearing the Anzac Day public holiday on Tuesday, coming so close to the Easter break, will see employees treat themselves to a second four-day long weekend.

And some employers, especially those in the hospitality industry, have resorted to putting casual staff on standby to call up quickly if their regular staff are no shows.

It comes as two recent surveys reveal the ‘sickie’ is alive and well in Australian workplaces.

An NRMA travel survey found one third of people confess they had taken a sickie, or intended to, to extend a long weekend, with Easter the second most likely time of the year to do so.

And Gen Ys were revealed as the most likely culprits, with the survey revealing almost half of them (48 per cent) fessing up to the practice.

The findings were similar in hotelscombined.com.au survey of 1000 people, which found 32 per cent of 20 to 29-year-old workers had called in sick to take or extends a holiday.

That survey also found Northern Territory residents were the most likely to use sick days to take or extend a holiday: 40 per cent admitted they have done this. The ACT follows (29 per cent), then SA (26 per cent), Victoria (25 per cent), NSW (20 per cent), Queensland (19 per cent), WA (18 per cent), and then Tasmania (8 per cent).

But it’s the day before Anzac Day that may prove especially tempting this year, because Monday to Friday workers who manage to take April 24 off will effectively have achieved the 50-50 work-life balance: of the 16 days between April 10 and April 26, you’ll work eight days, and have eight off.

And some businesses are preparing themselves for the inevitable “I won’t be in” excuses.

Tim Nieuwenhuis, CEO of on-demand labour-hire app Workfast, said businesses are already ‘sickie-proofing’, placing temps on standby to fill in for staff who are no-shows.

He said demand from employees for stand-in staff via Workfast is up 20 to 30 per cent for the Easter week and on through to Anzac Day, “predominantly in the hospitality and warehousing businesses”.

“We get an increase in requests for casual and on-demand staff around every holiday period,” he said.

One in three Aussies confess to forsaking the office for this.

“It’s not as simple as being short because of staff annual leave — employers ring us and tell us they are making sure they are covered not just sickies, but also for staff requests for that time off.

“If three people want that time off and they want to give it, they have to replace somehow. Throw in sickies and some people leave employers in the lurch a little bit.

“We do get last-minute calls: ‘Send me someone now’. It’s a big problem.

According to the NRMA survey, Australia Day is the most popular day to tack on a sickie (22 per cent), but Easter is in second spot, with 19 per cent opting for the sneaky sickie.

This year, the Good Friday and Easter Monday public holidays throw up a four-day long weekend, then it’s back to the office from Tuesday for four days.

Anzac Day is the following Tuesday, so a sneaky Monday off would mean another four-day weekend.

NRMA’s executive general manager of travel and touring, Paul Davies, said the sickie stats showed people really liked getting away from it all.

But given figures showing Aussies have 134 million annual leave days stockpiled he said there’s no need to take sickies.

“We encourage people to do the right thing and use that annual leave to enjoy time away with family and friends,” he said.

HotelsCombined bookings data revealed Bali is the number one international travel destination for Aussies this Easter, with head of marketing Chris Rivett venturing those taking a break there “will likely take a couple more days off work to take into account the half day of travel.”