Are we really ill more often than we used to be? And at a time when we need our government to spring into action after years of stop/start at Stormont, do we have the people power in the workforce to get things done quickly?
There is much to be done, but the Northern Ireland Civil Service is being plagued by staff absences.
There were on average 13.8 days lost per staff year to sickness in the Civil Service last year, with the level of sickness increasing compared to the previous 12 months.
Almost half of staff across the Civil Service had at least one day off sick in 2023/24. But even more of an issue is the number of employees taking long-term sickness.
One in seven have been off work long-term, with those spells lasting an average of three months.
And when a colleague is absent, the burden falls on those remaining employees.
The ingredients are there for added pressure, added anxiety and added days off when the work becomes too much.
People do get sick. There’s no avoiding it. But we don’t want the “sneaky Friday” or “weekend hangover Monday” creeping in across society — something the self-employed just can’t afford to do.
It would be a common assumption that all companies, particularly those with a larger-than-average workforce, would have policies in place to manage staff appropriately.
These would include procedures for analysing and recording patterns of sickness, a clear and detailed sickness policy in employee contracts, and managers with the awareness and skills to handle employee workloads and stress levels.
Also levels of staff care which encourage a healthy work/life balance, and health and safety policies where the genuinely ill do not feel pressurised into attending the workplace.
The staff of any company is its most valuable asset. Spending an estimated £44m a year on employees not available to work suggests everything is not quite right with the management of staff.
Like society in general, paying attention to the causes of anxiety, depression, stress and other psychiatric illnesses can have a much more beneficial effect than simply dealing with the results.
If the Civil Service is to get itself into a healthier state, then it can’t afford to let things slide any further.
When work that should be done is left to the side, or just handed to someone else who, due to low levels of staff across the service, is likely to have enough on their plate in the first place, a job may only get half done.