The results are clear: Employees who have a stronger emotional connection to their employer are more satisfied with their work, take fewer sick days, and are significantly less likely to consider changing jobs. Working conditions, as a recent, representative survey by the AOK Scientific Institute for the “Absenteeism Report 2024” emphatically demonstrates, are a key factor in employees’ ability to work and their health. There is a clear correlation between higher employee loyalty to their employer on the one hand and noticeably better health on the other.
However, the latest AOK figures also show just as clearly and unequivocally that the state of employees’ health in Germany is not good. According to the study, the number of illness-related absences among employees will reach a record high this year. Between January and August alone, there were approximately 225 sick days per 100 insured individuals, as determined by the AOK Federal Association based on sick leave reports. At that point, this was exactly the same number of sick days as in the entire year of 2023.
Mental Health Issues Are on the Rise
According to the report, a long-term factor contributing to higher sick leave rates is the steady rise in absences due to mental health conditions. Between January and August, there were approximately 15 such cases per 100 insured individuals—already more than in all of 2023. Because employees are usually on sick leave for significantly longer in such cases than, for example, with a cold, the number of absences due to mental health conditions has increased by nearly half between 2014 and 2024. On average, employees are on sick leave for more than 28 days in these cases.
Hans-Jürgen Urban is therefore calling on employers to finally take the consequences of mental strain and long absences seriously. “Stress, a frantic pace of work, pressure, and alienating work are increasingly becoming a threat to employees and companies,” said the executive board member of IG Metall. The fact that the number of days of incapacity for work due to mental illness has increased by nearly half since 2014 is a warning sign. “Employers must finally live up to their responsibility for the mental health of their employees. Instead of creating new bureaucratic hurdles for sick leave, we need more prevention through binding regulations from policymakers, such as an anti-stress ordinance.”
More Prevention Needed
According to Urban, only 40 percent of affected employees have the opportunity to participate in a return-to-work program after their illness. It is incomprehensible how lackluster the traffic-light coalition has been in pushing for a promised law on this issue. “We finally need a comprehensive, effective workplace reintegration program with an individual legal entitlement for employees following long-term or repeated illness. Otherwise, we risk falling into a vicious cycle of illness,” emphasizes Hans-Jürgen Urban.
