FDs never throw sickies.

The nation’s financial directors are beyond reproach when it comes to taking a ‘sickie’ – at least they are according to the FDs themselves.

Nine-out-of-ten finance chiefs in the latest Accountancy Age/ Reed Personnel Big Question survey said they had never bunked off work.

But they had a much lower opinion of their work colleagues. Well over half believe their staff do not have such high ethics and are prepared to cry off work.

Despite the growing fashion in British business for duvet days – a US import where staff can stay at home if they do not feel up to a day’s work in the office – it appears the concept is abhorrent to the dedicated, hard-working accountancy professionals.

The news comes at a time when British business is believed to be losing #4bn a year through faked sickness.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, British employees take an average of nine days a year off through illness, but it claimed one in three of those days was actually a ‘sickie’.

While acknowledging staff truancy was prevalent in the workplace, the finance directors had an ambivalent attitude to it.

One finance director said: ‘I don’t begrudge anyone who does (take a sickie) occasionally.’

Others were tougher. Another FD said: ‘We have recently found out that someone has been faking days off sick and this person will soon be leaving.’

One FD went even further, saying he would deduct a day’s holiday or wage if he knew an employee was faking it.

But perhaps the most honest answer came from one FD who admitted to faking a sick day, but it was ‘only once, about 12 years ago to watch the test match!’

More on this at www.accountancyage.com/ business/1122524.