Does it make sense to pay for staff?

In Great Britain, one in five people (5 million workers) is suffering from high levels of work-related stress. This results in approx. 13.4 million working days lost per year.

Increased sickness absence can have a domino effect - one person goes sick which leads to their workload being shared among the remaining staff. They are unable to cope, which affects their health, and this leads to greater sickness absence.

Costs of introducing seated acupressure massage pale into insignificance when compared to the cost of absence due to stress and musculoskeletal problems.

Costs of sickness absence

A Norwich Union Healthcare (2001) study showed the average employee is off work sick for almost 7 days each year.

• direct costs of sickness absences £534 per employee per year;
• indirect costs of sickness absences £1070 per employee per year.
• total cost per employee per year of sickness is approx £1600
• typically around 9% of payroll costs.

If you are currently experiencing or are managing staff who feel they are experiencing ill health as a result of excess pressure at work, please go to
HSE's Stress Web Pages.