Staff sickness in the spotlight

Illness costs UK businesses millions of pounds

Scotland's small businesses are being offered the chance to keep tabs on their employees' sickness records.

A pilot project has been launched which aims to reduce the losses experienced by firms because of staff illness.

The Sickness Absence Management (SAM) project will help companies record, classify and analyse absence levels and offer advice on managing them.

It is estimated that UK businesses lose nearly £11bn a year through staff being off sick - almost £570 per employee.

SAM project director Dr Ewan Macdonald said: "Sickness absence is a major problem for small and medium-sized enterprises and recording absence is the first step in managing absence.

"In this study employers will benefit not only from a tool to help them record and monitor absence, but also from advice and support on how to manage sickness absence.

Research group

"Employees may also be signposted to initiatives in their area to fit into the Scottish Executive's healthy working lives strategy."

Dr Macdonald is the head of Glasgow University's Healthy Working Lives Research Group (HWLRG).

It is running the pilot project in partnership with Scotland's Health at Work, Safe and Healthy Working and Scottish Engineering.

The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of new software which has been created to record, classify and analyse absence. It also offers advice and links to further information.