Following the brutal summer of blazing heat and droughts, the weather has shifted as colder air sweeps through the country.

While winter is the time when illness rates peak, a new school year often brings with it a fresh batch of bugs as children spread germs after not seeing each other all summer.

It is only a matter of time before employees become ill and while there is a growing tendency to power through, there is a real risk to business productivity that should be understood.

Is it good when employees work while ill?

While the role of hybrid and remote working is continually being discussed by businesses across the world, the one thing that it has certainly helped achieve is a work environment where people can continue to approach tasks even when ill.

Where once a colleague may have had to drag themselves to the office and drive their coworkers mad with a staccato of coughs throughout the working day, remote working allows employees to keep working without guilt.

This changing approach to work could explain why nearly half of all people in the UK go into work when they are sick in an act known as workplace presenteeism.

Younger workers are especially likely to try and power through, as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that workers aged 16 to 24 took an average of 2.4 days off sick last year, compared to 6.2 days for those aged 50 to 64.

Business owners may think this commendable and much of the desire to keep working is rooted in an idea of not letting the team down.

However, this approach is costly for businesses.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found in 2024 that employees lose the equivalent of 44 days’ productivity on average due to working through sickness, up from 35 days in 2018.

By contrast, there was only an increase from 3.7 days to 6.7 days lost to taking sick leave in the same period.

The same report found that businesses were losing £30 billion more to sickness than in 2018. While a rise in sick days accounted for an extra loss of £5 billion, the productivity loss of employees working when ill equated to £25 billion of the risen cost.

As employees working when ill appears to be five times more costly for a business than sick days, it is time that businesses considered their approach to employee absences.

How can the loss of productivity due to sickness be mitigated?

Employees falling ill is a natural part of running a business, so having a robust plan in place to account for this is vital for a company that seeks to remain economically robust.

This winter is the first to see the Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) rules, which saw the removal of the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) and a day-one entitlement to SSP.

These changes may see employees more emboldened to take time off when ill, as they no longer have to miss out on pay, but the difference between SSP and regular salary could still see people engage in presenteeism.

SSP is the lower of either 80 per cent of the employee’s average weekly earnings or the prevailing SSP flat rate set by the government – £123.25 per week for the 2026/2027 tax year.

With the cost-of-living crisis making every penny count for countless workers, the pay dip that comes with taking a sick day may not be something their budget can tolerate.

If you do wish to preserve your profitability by encouraging employees to take the time away from work to get the rest they need to be fighting fit sooner, it may be worth considering how paying above SSP would fit into your own budget.

Removing the fiscal penalty for illness may incentivise workers to look after themselves but may not be within the budget of every business.

It may be worth considering other strategies to improve employee health, like offering private health insurance or supporting flexible working arrangements that may reduce stress levels and make employees less susceptible to illness.

Getting professional accounting support is vital for finding the right approach for your business.

Our team can assess your unique position, helping you to determine which of your desired strategies best fit into your budget and forecasting the consequences for your finances of the costs of investing in employee wellbeing compared to the potential productivity cost.

Get in touch for the accounting support that will keep your productivity healthy throughout the colder months.