As sick days in the United Kingdom climb to record highs, more businesses are being challenged to reconsider how they approach employee wellness. 

Sick leave in the UK has reached a 15-year high, according to the CIPD’s Health and Wellbeing Report. Workers domestically were found to take 9.4 days off a year on average, which is an increase of more than a day since 2023.

There is no singular cause for this rise. According to the report, the top cause of short-term absence was minor illness, while the biggest cause of long-term absence was mental ill health. 

Stress was a big contributor to both, and high workload was identified as a key driver of both poor mental and physical health.

Organisations in the UK are also facing compounding challenges, such as increased treatment wait times, delaying employees returning to work, balancing hybrid work and preventing it from blurring the line between work and rest, and ensuring the boundaries between work life and personal life.

These don’t just result in missed days; they can also cause loss of productivity, affect workforce planning, and cause strain on HR teams who must try to balance empathy with the business productivity needs.

Here are a few ways that your business might contribute to this rising problem and how to deal with them:

Burnout & Overworking Employees

Burnout describes chronic tiredness and disinterest in both work and personal life, caused by prolonged overwork.

The Burnout Report 2025, by Mental Health UK, found that 1 in 5 workers needed to take time off due to burnout.

Burnout often leads to an increase in the amount of time workers need to take off, as they begin feeling the pressure under high workloads or even regularly working unpaid overtime. This doesn’t just cause a rise in absenteeism; it can also cause a rise in presenteeism. This is a term used when an employee attends work but feels too sick, stressed, or distracted to work effectively. Both of these can drastically affect productivity.

To help avoid this, a fair and transparent workflow is essential. Preventing overload is easier than rectifying issues after they develop.

By making use of technology to assist in this distribution, a business can be sure that work is being fairly handed out and can keep a monitor of the situation as it develops and the team manages their workload.

It is also important that managers regularly follow up and check on the progress of the employees and maintain clear, open, and dynamic communication that actively listens to the staff when they are feeling the pressure. This early intervention helps avoid burnout and supports long-term well-being.

Poor Workplace Transparency

The CIPD Health and Wellbeing at Work report also found that 75% of employees said poor relationships with colleagues have a negative impact on mental health, whilst 63% said that they also harm their physical health.

These issues often stem from unclear work practices. From inconsistent workflow assignment to weak communication between team members and their line manager. These can develop into stress and contribute to a feeling of isolation in the staff, worsening their well-being.

Lack of transparency, feelings of isolation, and poor inter-team communication can make employees reluctant to use their leave, especially if they worry it will burden others or disrupt workflows. 

Creating a culture of transparency helps to prevent this. Encourage regular communication and make it clear to staff that regular communication is not just accepted, it’s welcomed. By providing this, employees will feel part of a team that supports each other and lessens each other’s burden, and ensures employees feel comfortable taking care of themselves when it’s needed.

Additionally, provide a clear and simple way to request leave, and establish a standardised protocol for dealing with it. Shared calendars and centralised visibility help both employees and managers prepare in advance and can reduce stress for the staff as a whole.

Alternative Support

Employee concerns can take many forms, some outside direct workload, administrative stress, policy confusion, and personal matters that must be attended to outside of work hours, can all negatively impact wellness.

Mental Health UK’s 2025 Burnout report found that 49% of employees report money worries as a contributor to stress, whilst 29% reported feeling isolated.

These concerns might start outside work, but a high level of stress has been linked to burnout, which can have an effect on employees at work.

Self-service HR systems allow employees to manage their own information without needing to ask, helping them be clear on their remaining holiday balances, their payslips, and review policies without needing to chase a manager. 

This gives them more control and on-demand access to this information and can reduce everyday friction without them needing to chase someone who has the information, including external support, like documents explaining tax codes, including the most recent 1257L updates, to help staff avoid misunderstanding codes and explain unexpected deductions.

Added management tools can also introduce support networks for those struggling outside of work and can remove unwanted, awkward conversations while ensuring that your employees have access to everything they might need.

Tackling the HR Burden

These sorts of changes can also lighten the burden of the HR administrative load, as small questions and queries can be self-researched.

This holistic approach to support can massively assist the well-being of your staff far beyond just work tasks, helping reduce other sources of stress and helping reduce stress-related absences.

High amounts of sick days are thought of as the cause of a problem, but they are actually the symptom of unbalance.

If a business invests in support systems that protect the well-being of its staff, it protects its organisation too.