Taking a look into the staff absence statistics of 706 organisations across the UK, a study has revealed that workers take 53% more sick days in January than any other month in the year.

The study focussed specifically on the year of 2017, and January totalled 1,248 sick days, 53% higher than the average for the remaining 11 months of the year. As expected, staff absence was most common at the start of the year, with February amounting to 1,114 sick days and March 1,054 days.

Staff absence figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed that more than 34 million working days were lost to “minor illnesses”, like coughs, colds and flu. Second in line was musculoskeletal problems, which caused staff to take 28.3 million sick days; stress, depression and anxiety (14.3 million days); and gastrointestinal problems (8.4 million days).

How can we reduce staff absence?

January can be a busy time for administrators as staff start submitting their new holiday requests for the year, let alone having to manage staff sickness alongside that. LeavePlanner makes it easy by automating all absence management processes.

This includes, but is not limited to: approving staff holiday, reporting staff absence and adjusting absence allowances. This is all done through a few simple clicks in LeavePlanner, which saves administrators time and stress, allowing them to focus their attention where it’s needed most.

Start your 30-day LeavePlanner trial for no upfront cost today.