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September 18, 2003 at 08:00 PM
Incidental Absence: A Few Days Here And There Add Up To Big Losses
A medically related absence of one to five working days duration, known as incidental absence, is not typically thought of as a disability for a very simple reason: A “claim” does not occur until the absence goes into the short term disability, salary continuation, workers compensation or long term disability rolls.
Yet, incidental absence rivals all recognized types of disability in terms of lost work days. It is significantly more disruptive than all other recognized disabilities combined.
As awareness of the magnitude of incidental absence on business increases, ways to measure, diagnose and resolve IA are emerging. First, lets look at a case study to quantify the problem.
Consider a light manufacturer with 16,000 employees. Workers comp cases account for 9% of its absence events and 7% of its lost days. Short term and long term disability combined account for fewer than 12% of absence events and 60% of lost days. But incidental absence accounts for 79% of absence events and 33% of lost days.
At a fully loaded cost per employee per year for this employer of $50,000, these lost days equal $16.8 million in direct costs.
