Dealing with excessive employee sickness absence can be a major headache for businesses. Frequent absence disrupts the normal flow of work, it impacts on employee morale and in addition, it carries a significant cost both in terms of productivity and ultimately a company’s bottom line. This guide helps employers of all sectors and sizes navigate the challenge in a structured, legally compliant, and effective way; plus, we’ll show you how HRX can simplify the process.
What is excessive sick leave?
Excessive sick leave isn’t defined by law in terms of the number of days or occasions of absence in a certain period. Businesses typically set their own standards and targets to deal with patterns of frequent short-term absences, long-term sickness absence from work, or any combination that begins to hinder business operations. This might include:
- Frequent absences clustered before and after holidays.
- An employee being absent for more than two weeks in a year or a continuous period of over 4 weeks.
- A recurrent pattern, for example, regular Mondays/Fridays off.
Legally, employers must consider whether absences are due to disability or pregnancy and ensure fair treatment. A consistent framework helps managers make informed, lawful decisions while supporting employee health.
How many sick days is too many?
Here are the latest stats to give context:
- In 2024, the Office for National Statistics reported a sickness absence rate in the UK of 2.0%, which equates to about 4.4 working days lost per worker per year. That figure is actually down from 2.3% (and 4.9 days) in 2023, but still slightly above pre-pandemic levels Office for National Statisticseminence-recruitment.com.
- However, CIPD data reveals a much higher figure of 9.4 days lost per employee annually, nearly two full working weeks, marking a record high and a 62% increase on pre-COVID levels, Personnel TodayWorkplace Journal.
So, a rough benchmark for concern in relation to absence levels might be somewhere in between the two figures at around 7 days per year.
How to deal with an employee who is frequently off sick
Here’s a high-level, step-by-step approach for both managers and business owners:
Monitor early and systematically
You should make sure that you keep accurate absence records, including days, reasons and patterns. In order to ensure the accuracy of these records, you can hold return-to-work meetings with staff after each period of absence to confirm the details. Implement a simple absence tracker or if you have HR software, like HRX, then use that to record sickness and keep records of return to work meetings and sick notes for each employee securely.
Hold informal check-ins
If you notice repeated absences, schedule an informal supportive chat or welfare meeting. Ask how they’re doing, if there are underlying health, workload, or personal issues, and whether any reasonable adjustments could help.
Escalate to formal procedure if needed
If the pattern continues, trigger a formal absence management procedure. Share the absence policy, set expectations, explore adjustments (like flexible hours or adjusted tasks), and consider an occupational health referral.
Ensure legal compliance
You must remember:
- Disability discrimination law: Long-term or recurring conditions may qualify as disabilities as set out in the Equality Act 2010 requiring employers to consider reasonable adjustments (for example, phased returns, altered duties, relaxed targets etc).
- SSP obligations: Ensure compliance with statutory sick pay regulations and confirm entitlement periods.
- Confidentiality: Maintain privacy, employee health details are protected as they are considered sensitive personal data under GDPR. If you use HR software then make sure that it has different access levels so that only people who need to see the information for legitimate business reasons can do so.
Support wellbeing to reduce future absence
Taking a proactive approach to employee wellbeing can prevent absence in the first place. Employers should look to offer flexible hours and work locations if the job allows it, reduce workplace stress, train mental health first aiders, provide access to counselling or employee assistance programmes, and create a supportive workplace culture in which conversations around wellbeing are normal.
How can HRX help manage excessive sickness at work?
HRX offers a simple, all in one HR platform that helps manage absence effectively and proactively:
- Absence tracking, reporting and document management: Upload sick notes, record absence reasons and dates, and download absence reports.
- Document library: HRX can store your sickness absence policy for employees to easily refer to when needed and the knowledge base can hold template forms to be used as part of the absence management process.
Effectively managing employee sickness is about balancing empathy with structure. Use data to spot when employee absence becomes excessive, act early with both informal and formal approaches, comply with legal obligations, and foster a healthy workplace culture. HRX can streamline and professionalise the process helping you stay compliant, reduce absence, and support your people.
If your business is ready to simplify absence management and other HR administration tasks then get in touch to arrange your 30 day free trial.
