In the dark

Employee absence can be damaging for any organisation, with the reduction in resources potentially leading to reduced productivity and lower staff morale. In fact, the cost of staff absence to the UK economy rose to £13.4bn in 2006. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel, the average number of days lost per employee in the UK is around eight and costs employers around £598 for every employee every year. To put this in perspective, the cost of absence for a business with 1,000 employees could be £598,000 a year, amounting to some 800 days lost - the equivalent of operating with 30...