‘You’re fooling no one’: Nearly half of Aussies ‘faking’ sickies, new research suggests

IS YOUR co-worker really sick or just faking? Research suggests the cheeky sickie is quickly turning into our national sport.

AUSTRALIAN workers have been urged to do the right thing and request personal leave rather than chuck a sickie ahead of the Australia Day long weekend.

It came as a survey of 500 workers by software company Tsheets found just 52 per cent of workers taking sick leave were genuinely ill, with 40 per cent actually faking.

The top reasons given for chucking a sickie included seeing family, taking a long weekend, visiting friends and recovering from a hangover. Other reasons included saving up annual leave, going for a job interview, enjoying the weather or a day at the beach, to attend a sporting event or to work for someone else.

“Another interesting item to note is that 30 per cent of Aussies chose not to use all their annual leave in 2016 so they could save it for 2017,” TSheets analyst Sandy Vo told the Courier-Mail.

“Culturally, it seems so much more acceptable in Australia for employees to take long holidays off, whereas it’s a little more frowned upon in the US.”

NSW Business Chamber spokesman Damian Kelly said workers should do the right thing and apply for personal or family leave if they really needed time off.

“That’s what leave is there for,” he told 2GB. “We’re encouraging people to have that conversation, we’re encouraging bosses to allow that to happen wherever it’s possible.

“But if you do take next Thursday [before Australia Day] as a sick day, you’re fooling no one, and more importantly you’re letting your workmates down.

“Your professional reputation is something that should be really important to you and that’s something that’s going to be damaged pretty quickly by taking a day off without having that conversation.”

Mr Kelly said many people regard sick leave as a right, rather than “something that is there for the genuinely sick”. “If you are allotted 20 days of sick leave each year, many people see that as the minimum they should be taking,” he said.

“So come the end of a particular 12-month cycle, they think, ‘You beauty, I’ve got some sickies up my sleeve so I’ll take a sick day and head to the beach.’”

Employee absence increased from 9.5 to 9.7 days per employee in 2016-17, according to Direct Health Solutions’ 2017 Absence Management and Wellbeing Survey.

DHS estimates the total cost of absenteeism in Australia is now $33.06 billion annually. The average cost of absence per employee now sits at $3615, equating to an average daily cost of absence of $372.

Absenteeism was highest in transport and logistics sector at 12.1 days, followed by the public sector on 11.4 days, contact centres at 11.2 days and health and aged care at 11.1 days. Overall, private sector employees averaged 9.5 days.

According to the survey — which quizzed 2300 managers from 122 organisations which collectively employ 240,000 Australians — 25 per cent of respondents believed the amount of “non-genuine absences” was increasing.

Meanwhile, 70 per cent of respondents believed there was an “entitlement mentality” in their organisation, and 59 per cent said it was easy to chuck a sickie because there were no consequences.

Last year, a Tassal factory worker who was sacked for chucking a hangover sickie after drinking too much on Anzac Day was awarded $8000 in compensation after the Fair Work Commission found she was treated harshly.

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Originally published as ‘You’re fooling no one’: Nearly half of Aussies ‘faking’ sickies, new research suggests