Lost workdays can affect not only your business's production but also its operating costs. It can result from many reasons, such as employee holidays, sickness, or other activities preventing your employees from being available. This article will give you an idea of how lost workdays will cost the average small business and the main reasons for lost workdays. Lastly, we know how to calculate lost days and associated business costs.
What is a lost workday?
A lost workday refers to the total number of workdays lost compared to the scheduled hours your employee would have usually been available. It is the number of days a worker is absent from the workplace that they would have been at work in normal situations. It also refers to any type of leave covering sickness, work-related illnesses, workplace accidents, or planned holidays.
What are the main reasons for lost workdays?
38.8 million workdays were estimated to be lost in the UK due to work-related illnesses and workplace accidents in 2019/2020. Stress, anxiety, depression, and muscular-skeletal disorders are the main reasons for most of these lost workdays. An average absent employee took 17.6 days off to recover from work-related illnesses or accidents.
Accidents in the workplace
Accidents are common in many workplaces where employees work manually. Manual handling can cause incidents like slips, trips, and falls, requiring employees to take time off work to recover. 6.3 million working days are lost in 2019/2020 due to workplace injuries. Unfortunately, accidents happen, and these incidents can still occur even in workplaces that closely follow health and safety guidelines.
Mental health
During the same reporting period, another reason for a lost workday is mental health conditions (anxiety, depression, and work-related stress). Threats, violence, bullying, excessive workloads and a lack of support are the main reasons that cause work-related mental health conditions.
How do lost workdays cost your businesses?
It is easy to assume that lost workdays only cost an absent employee their wages. But, unfortunately, it is much more than that. When working out the cost of lost workdays, you should also consider the cost of training another employee to cover those absent employees. Their absence will not only impact your productivity but also affect your team's morale.
A report from mental health charity Mind and Deloitte finds that lost workdays due to mental health cost UK employers £45 billion a year and considered for half of all work-related illnesses last year. The cost of workdays lost due to mental health and accidents at work is certainly not small. Although it is almost impossible to stop some lost workdays, business owners can take some steps to reduce the amount of lost time suffered by their business.
Business owners can offer flexible working schedules for employees. They can also make policies to adopt clear communication. So, employees are comfortable talking to their line managers about their absences or reasons for needing time off. Business owners can provide support to reduce work-related stress, which causes them to take time off. They can also encourage employees to use their allocated leave. So, they are aware of their absence and manage it well.
How do you calculate lost workdays and business costs?
The most commonly used measure is the lost time rate, which shows the percentage of total time available lost due to any type of absence during a certain time period. To calculate the lost time rate, divide the total absence in hours or days in the chosen period by the possible total in hours or days in that period, then multiply by 100.
For example, if your employee could work 37 hours per week. They miss 7 hours of work; the sum would be:
7 ÷ 37 x 100 = 18.92%.
The lost time calculation is helpful for business owners. It provides an overview of how much money the business loses due to unavailable employees. It can help you identify where change is needed to reduce lost time and increase productivity. It also helps you identify those policies that need an update or enable you to make changes that will positively impact your business's bottom line and hopefully drive down absence.