Our new survey of 1,000 UK adults found that employees frequently pick a ‘one-off’ or short-term health complaint when calling in sick, instead of telling the truth about reoccurring problems.
The research shows that long-term health conditions are deemed the ‘least valid’ reasons for not attending work, despite their often devastating symptoms.
Only 15% of people said that Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis were acceptable reasons to call in sick. Other often invisible long-term conditions, such as depression, anxiety, and fatigue scored even lower.
When asked for the most ‘legitimate’ reason for taking a sick day, the British public’s top three answers were short-term illnesses: vomiting (43%), flu (36%) and food poisoning (33%).
When calling in sick, Brits cover up the real reason for their illness for fear of judgement from colleagues (32%) and feel anxious (37%), stressed (28%) and doubted (22%) when having to take time off work.
For those with a long-term health condition, over half of respondents feel they have to downplay their condition at work, because they believe they will experience stigma in the workplace and that it will affect their careers.
The findings are supported by our 2018 Quality of Life survey, which shows that 44% of people living with Crohn’s or Colitis in the UK today agree that their long-term health condition has affected their careers.
It’s easy to understand why. Our study also found that just under one in five workers feel ‘frustrated’ towards colleagues who are frequently off sick, and 6% feel ‘angry’ towards these colleagues.