Job losses blamed for stress as council staff take more time off

Bradford Council has worked to reduce sickness among staff for several years and has succeeded in bringing the average number of days lost per employee from just over 14 per year in 2005-06 to just over 10 in 2011-12.

But the most recent figure has seen a rise to 10.44 days lost in the year up to March.

A report says the rise is not restricted to one department but reflected an increase across all departments.

The rise “appears to have coincided with the major disruption of services through significant restructuring” associated with the loss of management posts, the report notes.

Anecdotal evidence suggested that the rise in sickness absences has coincided with the loss of experienced managers and a less rigorous overview of sickness absences.

“A lot of experienced managers left employment through delayering and that left a number of managers feeling overwhelmed by their expanding roles and some new managers not adequately trained,” says the report.

The report, to be discussed by the authority’s Executive committee on Tuesday, reveals that other councils in Yorkshire have rising sickness levels.

One of the reasons for Bradford’s relatively high rate of sickness could be its large contingent of craft and manual workers.

“There is some evidence that, often due to the nature of the work, council’s that have significantly fewer craft and manual workers have significantly less recorded sickness absence.”

The council is investigating the statistics to better understand the impact on sickness levels in relation to the type of staff employed.

“We undertook this exercise as Bradford now employs a much larger contingent of craft and manual workers than many other authorities, who have outsourced these services to the private sector.”

If Bradford had not counted craft and manual worker sickness in 2012-13 the figure would have been 9.42 rather than 10.44 days lost.

Craft and manual staff make up around 20 per cent of the full-time staff at Bradford Council but they took over 29 per cent of all sickness in 2012-13 and currently have taken 28 per cent of all the sickness during the first three months of 2013-14.

The most common reason for sickness among craft and manual workers is fractures/sprains/muscular, with back problems among the top five reasons.

Craft and manual workers are less likely to take time off for depression and stress.

The council says it is working to reduce sickness. Work is underway to look at putting physiotherapists on-site to work with staff.

Managers with no knowledge of dealing with sickness absences are being given training.

Matt Burghardt, interim head of human resources, said: “We are determined to continue the progress we’ve made over the last seven years and are working really hard on this.

“Bradford Council has broadly maintained its level of staff attendance, with sickness absence slightly up from an average of 10.1 days off sick per member of staff in 2011 to an average of 10.4 days in 2012. This followed a continuous reduction in sickness absence over the previous six years.

“The highest area of recorded sickness is related to muscular and skeletal problems and we are instigating a number of measures to mitigate against this type of sickness such as physiotherapy intervention in the workplace and training on manual handling.

“It is too early to assess our current performance for 2013 but so far our sickness levels are in line with last year.

“We have initiated early intervention programmes and over the next few months we will know what impact they are having on sickness levels.”