17 May 2017

British workers are much more likely to push through illness to continue with their jobs than to pretend to be sick in order to have a day off, a new survey has found.

The research from Aviva showed that 69% of private sector employees - around 18 million people - have turned up for duty despite feeling like they needed a day off.

In contrast, only 23% have said they have pulled a sickie, and sickness leave has fallen to a record low of 4.3 days per worker per year, compared with 7.2 in 1993.

As many as 43% of workers felt that their boss prioritises business performance ahead of their health and wellbeing, and 41% said they were afraid of the way their work would pile up if they took time off.

But employers seem oblivious to how this trend is affecting their workers, with only 23% of bosses saying they felt stress was an issue among their workforce, compared with 42% of workers.

Of those employers who invested in the health and wellbeing of their workforce, 77% said this had a positive impact on their staff in terms of happiness, morale and productivity.