Council sick days sky rocket despite introduction of lunchtime pilates for staff
Sick days at a Northern Ireland council have rocketed up by 35% with a strategy of lunchtime Pilates being used to tackle physical aches and pains.
Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council’s (LCCC) corporate committee was presented with a report showing a rise of more than 800 days of absence in the quarter year (July to September).
The updated analysis shows sickness increased in the last three months to 3,017 compared to the previous quarter (April to June) when it was 2,208. Councillor Jamie Harpur said: "I have concerns that the amount of illness is creeping up again and wondering if this is a seasonal thing?
“Also, levels of stress and mental health reasons for absence is also up.
“Are the amount of people off sick impacting on others who are taking on more work and therefore may have added stress?”
The report shows mental health remains the highest cause of absence at 997 days lost this quarter with the council introducing craft events, such as Christmas wreath making, for employees as a way to lower stress levels.
Lunchtime Pilates has also been introduced to tackle muscle and joint pains and movement problems, which have caused 600 days lost to illness.
Back and neck problems have been identified separately and have jumped from 24 days last quarter to 137.
The directorate which consistently has the most sick days is leisure and community wellbeing with the most up to date figure at 17 days per employee.
Councillor Pat Catney added: “These statistics should be compared to the private sector, because if I had staff taking 15 days off on top of holidays I couldn’t afford to open a business. “Perhaps we need to look more closely at these figures.”
A council officer responded "At the moment we are meeting our targets for absence.
“The reason for illnesses are not seasonal.
“We have introduced lunchtime Pilates to help with musculoskeletal problems and craft events that help to lower stress levels and improve mental health.
“There are a wide variety of reasons for stress, but mostly it is in a person’s private life outside of work and affects a relatively small number of people off long term.”