New research by market researcher TNS has revealed that employees in Greater London take almost twice as many “fake” sick days as the national average.

The “Britain at Work” study showed that 33% of London workers admitted to calling in sick to work when they were not in fact physically ill. These stark statistics are even more startling when the national average is 19% and 12% of London workers pull a “sickie” at least three times a year.

The study also provided an interesting insight into the various reasons us Brits use to justify a day off “sick” from work. On average, 30% would pull a “sickie” because they felt stressed, 12% because they felt tired and 45% because they were going through relationship issues.

Embarrassingly, 12% of London workers felt a hangover was a reasonable excuse for a day off work.

The survey sampled 1,000 people aged 16 - 24. One might argue that the sample represented the views of a younger generation and the new breed of “young professionals” and couldn’t be held as representative of the overall working population, but these “young professionals” are the new generation of employees so the statistics are relevant for the future of Absenteeism in the workplace.

“We have seen a steady increase in employers taking practical measures to curb ’sickies’ - and these figures show there is a real need for this” according to Gemma Camp, Head of Stakeholder Management at TNS.

“Rather than just coming down hard on employees, businesses need to introduce better incentives for high attendance and seek to identify what it is that drives people to call in sick. Employee engagement is more important than ever - we know that higher levels of engagement result in lower levels of absenteeism” she concluded.

For more information on how Peoplevalue’s Excellence Awards can help reduce levels of Absenteeism, please click here.