Benchmark reality check - Where does your business stand? Workplace Audit workshop 2 of 10

Welcome back to our second workshop session breaking down our Workplace Wellbeing Audit report - CEDAR: Helping you find hidden costs, create real gains, and unlock ROI through targeted wellbeing solutions.

Last time we spoke about people cost baselines, now we are going to move into UK Benchmarks to put those numbers into context, looking at wages, sickness days, distractions, the ripple effect, and what it means to your business.

Links and info:

Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2025 - ons.gov.uk

Oxford Economics - riseworks.io

Team moral dip costs - natwestmentor.co.uk

CIPD Health and Wellbeing at Work 2025 report - cipd.org

1 hour 24 mins non-work interruptions - totaljobs.com / clockify.me

Cognexo data - peoplemanagement.co.uk

Culture Amp - personneltoday.com 

ONS projects wage growth - standout-cv.com / recruitmint.com 

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If you would like to know more about our CEDAR outside of the podcast do let me know, and if you have enjoyed this episode, please share and like the show. 

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Next up on Illness is not a burden we move onto CKD in the Workplace (Chronic Kidney Disease)

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello everybody and welcome to the Chronic Edge Unleashed Behind the Edge. I'm your host, Ellie Evans, and today we are back at the workshop audit: the hidden costs, real gains, well-being, return on investment uncovered. As you know, from previous, I do tend to look at notes. So if you see me looking away, if you're watching this on video, that is clearly the reason. And if you're listening, you won't see any of that, so don't worry about this little bit of the intro. So, where were we? As we talked about in episode one, we talked about the benchmarking and the information to why having a workplace audit was vitally important. You know, we're in unpacking invisible drains to your businesses, bottom line, one honest metric at a time. Now, last time we talked about why hidden people cost matter. And I left you with a simple task to calculate your rough people's cost baseline. Total payroll divided by revenue. And if you did that, great, hold on to it. Because today in episode two, we're putting those numbers into context. We'll look at the latest UK benchmarks from average wages to sickness days, comparing costs to daily distractions, your business might feel normal, but do you really stack up against your competition? So stick around and find out and get the tool to spot your outliners. So why are benchmarks important for your reality check? Now before we dive into the numbers, let's remember why this matters. It's well-being, return on investment, impact assessment, or the foundations of our audit, CDEP. We use these benchmarks to give data meaning. They're not just stats, they are the yardstick against your industry, national, and local realities. All our external data comes from trusted sources like Delote, CIPD, ONIS, and others. We update them regularly to the workplace as is evolving, thinking of mental health, cost rises, impacts, post-pandemic hybrid shifts, and for 2026 planning, those 2025 figures are gold. They show you where you are competitive or vulnerable. So if you get the opportunity, do go and have a look at these different sources to check regularly and update them into your system straight away so that you are aware of any updates. So let's uh let's let's go let's start a little broad, shall we? So, according to the latest onus data from the annual survey of hours and earnings ASHE in 2025, released in October, the median gross annual earnings for full-time employees hit around £39,039 in April 2025, which is up 4.3 from the £37,439 in 2004. All links will be provided in the information. Now that's the national baseline, but it does vary on location and sector for your town, for example, or city. The best thing is to plug in the averages to see where you're lagging. You can find that information, you put in, like say for example, Preston, you put in Preston local national wage, and it will give you a national wage for that particular town, and you can benchmark that against national. As we said in pre in the previous episodes, is that um because of places like London and that sort of area, the money tends to look higher in national than it is when you come down to sort of like um the northwest style, where you look at I would love to be on 39,000, but the average is probably about 26,000. So, you know, it's a it's always best to get this information to look at based on where you're at, and then you can compare it to national and then international, depending on if you're trying to bring people over and they're asking for a hell of a lot more money than what the job is down here. Those could potentially see why that is. So all employees cost more than their salary. The onus and CIPD factor in baseline of benefits, national insurance contributions and overheads, pushing the true annual cost per employee to around £50,000 for many small businesses in 2025. It's one of those things where you look at the benchmark and you go, Well, I'm looking at the wage, and the wage is like what we say 37,000, shall we say sorry, 39,000? And then you think, right, well, it's just 39,000, and then you've got to think, well, I've got to do their national insurance contribution so it goes up again. Uh then I've got to think about like annual leave and sick pay and things like that, so it's gonna go up again, and then like time off and things like that, and then if we're gonna have anything else that we're gonna integrate into their working week and everything else, that's gonna cost again. So, you know, you it it's never just the wage, you've got to really think about the external costs, which is why it's so important when we're thinking about like retention and things like that, because it isn't just the initial wage that you're going, well, I'll save 39,000 by getting rid of them, uh, and bringing somebody else in new on 26. Well, that's true, but you've got to think about all the other figures like retention, selling, uh you know, um advertising, all of those different types of things, so it's a hell of a lot of a different cost. So you're understanding these sort of numbers calculation-wise is really important. You don't have to be good at maths, I'm terrible at maths. I have this calcular, uh, which is a form of dyslexia with numbers, and a calculator for well, everything, um, but data is different because data is just the thing there, and once you've got the calculation, calculate it's fine. So breaking down those benchmarks. First up, hiring costs, just mentioned it there, the average cost to bring in a new team member. Now, recent studies building on Oxford Economics and UNAM UNUM research pegging at around £30,000 per employee in 2025. That is up from earlier estimations due to inflation and talent shortages. You can look at uh RiseWorks.io for information on there, but I will pop the links in. Now that looks not just ads and interviews, it's lost productivity while the role sits empty. Plus on boarding time, and for roles around £25,000 plus, it can hit £30,614, including £5,433 in direct logistics and around £25,000 in indirect, like T Moraldips. I look at NatWest Mentor for that uh information. Now that that when you're looking at that, uh you've got to think about if I've got a manager and that manager's now got to find a new employee, that's taking time away from their management role. They've then got to do the interviewing, again, taking time away. They've then got to look at the onboarding process, they've then got to work with the individual to get them up to speed. That can take a couple of weeks, a couple of months, depending on the job. And if you think about that for the for the long haul, how much time is being taken out of the day-to-day job that that person would be doing to be doing this extra stuff. It's it's a lot, it's a lot, and it's it's those types of things to take into consideration. So, next up, sick days. Croik Edge, obviously, sick days. So the CIPD Health and Wellbeing at Work 2025 report, they're just currently doing that, so it might be a new remote out soon. Uh, supported by Simply Health, shows that UK employees took on average 9.4 days off sick in 2025. That is up seven point from 7.8 in 2003 and 5.8 pre-pandemic. Now that is nearly two full weeks per person. The highest it's been in 15 years. Mental health is the top long-term driver with stress fueling both long and short-term absences. And you've got to think about that with short-term, long-term, and everything. Now, long-term, obviously, we've just talked about mental health, but short term in their colds, just not feeling very well, pillow days, you know, all those different types of things and everything, but the stress is is the big, big, big, big one, especially pre-pandemic, uh post-pandemic. I in the in the younger generation, massively, you've got to think about how much was lost during that period of time and everything, and how it's impacted them. And it's very, very difficult to get support nowadays to address them, and some people don't know how to address them. It's important to have a look at those things. Then there's distractions. Research from Total Jobs and similar in 2025 studies show that workers lose on average one hour and twenty-four minutes per day to non-work interruptions. Now that's like colleagues chatting, boredom, poor environments, and for some that can hit around 2.1 hours daily to four hours daily. That is costing the UK businesses about £15 billion plus in lost productivity annually. Now that could be uh we talk about a lot of people talk about well, we don't want to do hybrid working, we all do report uh remote working because what are they doing at home? This is in the office. I'm just gonna go to the water they call it a lot of water cooler. You go down to the water cooler and go and have a chat. I'm gonna go and make a brew, I'm gonna go and have a chat in the kitchen. Yes, obviously people need to have a brew, they need to have a break and things like that and everything. That you can't sit at a desk for seven hours straight. It is it's impossible. But you think about it of like those um those additional breaks. Not the breaks, I've got my 15 minute break, I'm gonna go and do this. These are the additional breaks that take the extra time. I'm just gonna go just having a quick chat. Just to catch up. You start talking about work, they end up talking about other things. Looking at the phone, looking at other things. The job isn't engaging, the job's boring. I I don't like being here, I'm gonna look at other things instead. And that that's uh that's down to business o a lot of business owners because they're not making the job engaging enough to want the per for the person want to properly engage, and there are tools to be able to work that out and other strategies to make that a lot a lot better and everything, and to uh engage the employee to why they won't do that. Now that is not everybody although when you look at the figures, dis uh dissatisfaction in the workplace is around 90% across the world, uh as I as I average. Uh so again, some workplaces people that you're looking at less than 30 minutes distractions, maybe even less. Um so you know you've got to consider those things as well. So let's go back. So I'm in the assessment you're using here, you use this baseline for re rage, dissatisfaction, impact, and then you assume that about 30 minutes per day is lost between 35 and 40% of the staff. The recent uh connects so that's C-O-G-N-E-XO data shows that 45% feel undervalued overall. So speaking of distractions, people management.co.uk and CIPD 2025 Good Work Index reveal that around 48% of UK workers feel they are not paid appropriately for their contribution. Now it's down slightly from 2023, but it's still a major exodus driver. Uh the onus confirms that about 90% of overall job satisfaction, as we just mentioned that, uh, in some surveys, with salary being the top factor. That is the reason why we do the baseline for cost per person to check whether you are in national there to see whether or not you are paying enough for that. I know it's very, very difficult with all the other like costings and things involved there with everything going up and that lot, but um, and that's not your a lot of it's not your fault at all. Um I uh a lot of it is that the it's I always think about it is when wages go up, it's like well, well, everything else goes up with it. If I put my prices up, that means for my minimum worker, it means that my supervisor then wants more money because they need they're doing a different job, so they need more money. Then your manager wants more money because then they're closer to the supervisor, so they need more money, so now you've got to pay everybody's wages up, and because of that, your costs to get your items in have also gone up because everybody else has done the same, they're their wages have gone up, so they've had to do the chip costs a lot more, and because everything all the costs have gone up and everything, you now need to apply that to the uh customer, and you put your price up to the customer, and now the customer who could afford it because hey, well, wages have gone up, I can now afford the stuff, can't afford it because everybody's wages have gone up, and now they can't afford the stuff again, and we're back in an endless circle of going round and round and round and round of wages going up and prices going up and never ever meeting in the middle. It's a weird, silly system. We're at some point we're gonna be on a minimum wage of £100 an hour, and it and it's gonna be crazy, but that's by the by. We'll we'll come back to that. Uh well, we might not come back to that, but you know what I mean by that. Okay, so wages being a top factor. Now we'll look at the ripple effect. When one employee leaves, it often triggers more. Now, Oxford economics studies that show indirect turnover costs. This is like morale and further resignations, which can add around £25,000 per departure, creating a chain reaction that can basically come to multiple losses. So, with our with our assessment, we look at uh that sort of element as well with um the ripple effect. So the way you're looking at it is if you've got a really good employee that everybody likes, and for whatever reason they're ill or or something like that, and the employer goes, you know what, that they're ill, but they're not gonna be able to do the job they did about 10 you know, a couple of weeks ago. Uh they can still do a really great job, but not the job that I want them to do. So we're gonna get rid of them and bring somebody else in. And uh you bring you so you get rid and uh you bring somebody else in, and the rest of the staff are like, Well, what's going on here? Well, why have you got rid of Bob? Bob were great, uh, they really knew the job, uh, they were fantastic. Yes, they got ill, you basically you they've got a bit ill and you've got rid of them. What happens if I get ill? Are you gonna do the same to me? And you know, why have you brought this new person in that doesn't know anything, and now we've got to now we've got to have more work to do because we're gonna now we're gonna have to wait for this other person to be trained up. And it and it causes discontent, and because of that, you then end up losing other members of staff because things that might have irritated them before now makes it even worse. Because if you can get rid of Bob dead quick, and Bob was great, uh you know, maybe maybe I'm not safe either, and you end up losing other members of staff, and then you start looking at it going, well, why have I got rid of it? Why is everybody leaving? What have we done? And and then you f when you start tracing it back and everything, you realise that well, I've got rid of Bob, and we really could do with having Bob back, you know, and things like that. And it it it it doesn't always work that way, but sometimes the ripple effect can be as simple as something along those lines, or changing something, you know, we get we're getting getting rid of something that all the the team and and everything have absolutely loved, and it completely changes going from like a small business into a corporate environment and all of the things changing to what how it was before, and then everybody starts leaving, and you're going, Why we're making now more money and we're doing a lot better? It's because like some of the changes, it's not the same place anymore. And change does happen, and sometimes people will just leave for whatever reason, but it's important to have a look at these things to why people are leaving. So, uh, as we were saying there, so way we look at it on the on the assessment, though. If you were going to be doing it on yours, you could look at it slightly differently if you want, but the best way of doing it is limiting that for about two months. So the impact on about 35% of the staff, real world data and culture amps show around 23% are planning quitting, up by about 3%. So that that's the way of looking at it. It's never gonna be everybody and it's never gonna be everything, so you've got to kind of weight it down in that percentage. If you were doing charity work, for example, the social rate of return is a very much a simple a similar type of thing. You do it on a weighting process, you're never gonna cure a hundred percent of depression, for example. Depression has a price, by the way, so it's about £660 uh per person per year based on NHS and government intervention type stuff. So when you're doing that sort of calculation, you wait it against 25% uh as a weighting tech uh calculation, but you also then consider what your impact's gonna be. So it's never gonna be 100% with your initiative. So you look at well, we might impact I don't know, 20% of their overall uh depression with our initiative, and um from the 10 people that we're going to see, we're gonna it'll hit about eight people because some people won't engage and things like that, and everything, and then you weight it against 25%, and that's what gives you your return on investment figure, which is still usually really, really high. Uh, but that they're the types of things when you're looking at in in relation to calculations. So, with these all these things, is not every member of staff is gonna get massively impacted. Some of them probably didn't lie, but some of them never ever met Bob, you know, and things like that. So you've got to consider the weighting process when you when you're looking at them uh percentage-wise. So tying this to your your business now, these don't are just national averages, they are comparison points. In your report and our reports here that we plug in your location. So this is what you do, you plug in your location, so your town average 39,000 uh from Glassdoor Oness and Industry, UK tech, whatever that high percentage is, if your salaries are below that benchmark, then you are a risk of 23% quitting wave. So let's say for example, you're the average wage in the UK £39,000. In Blackpool and you're offering £27,000 for that particular industry. Now I could go to uh London and get £39,000, or I can come to on average, or I can come to you in Blackpool for £27,000. Now, if I'm in the North West, it's more likely I'm going to stick around my area and trade some to London. But if I'm doing a comparison of what wages are as a as a worker, I'm gonna look at going, well, this is 39,000 and you're doing 27. I want 30. And then other people looking at different jobs. So if I went and if I left this job, what other is the wage that people are giving elsewhere? Well, it's 37 there, so why am I on 20? Why is it 10,000 pounds less? Can I have a pay rise? Well, no, because we're we're doing top mark because of the area. It's it's looking at those particular areas, but look at it based on your area. So if, for example, um UberTech down the road is doing 32,000 and you're on 26, then it then it makes sense that the the your your employees going, well, Uber Uber Tech are doing 32 for the same job I'm doing here for 26. I'm gonna I'm going UberTech. So do it based on your area and everything. You can go, yeah, well, you can trade some to London for your extra ten thousand, it will probably cost you more. And and when you do that sort of pricing thing, it is probably most cost effective to be on the twenty-seven. So you know you've got to think about these things logically as well as practically. So let's take our a hundred firm. So now let me somebody style that let's take a company with a hundred employees. It's always easier to do it with an easy number. Now, with a 9.4 sickness day average, that is potentially 82,000 pounds in costs if long term cases spike. Let's add in distractions, so that is one hour and 24 minutes daily across staff that could leak to I don't know, quite a bit of cash there, and dissatisfaction hitting about 48,000. That is a moral. Erosion leading to turnover with each lever costing around £30,000 plus and the ripple effect in there. And then here's your value. When you're spotting your outlier, is leads to your fastest win. If your sickness is above 9.4, that is a flag to bring in well uh well-being gaps. Below, you're ahead. Build on it. The way we why it's important to do each benchmark individually rather than going, well, we're just gonna bring in Muffy Monday and a couple of head massages and the odd little talk here, then, and everywhere, that'll cover all my problems. No, you do not know what your problem is until you've done your audit. So you do your full audit of all your different benchmarks and all your different metrics, you've got your little bar chart of working it all out. Once you've worked everything out, you go, right, well, our problem is we're we're doing our sick people, our people are off sick, I don't know, um 12 days and the average is nine, then there's your problem. Your problem has nothing to do with your wage, potentially. If your wage is on point, but people are off sick because they can't stand to be in the office, then you know that you've got the problem is workplace toxicity. There's something in the office that is making people not want to come in. Now let's find that out. And then when you go through it, you end up finding out that nobody wants Muffin Monday because they don't want because they're all gluten-free. So you've just wasted your time there. Nobody wants head massages because they don't want to be touched, and they've been taught spoke to so many times about different inspirational things that they're sick to death of it, and they just and they just what and it doesn't apply to their situation, but what they actually would love is an application thing that they can plug in and go, This is how I'm feeling, this is how things are going, how can it make my life better? And it gives you the sort of tools and advice, and it gives them financial planning or whatever it takes in there that helps them outside of their office, so means when they come in, they're getting all these additional things that is helping them move better in life as well as outside of life in work. Now they're more interested in coming to work because my business cares about me. Then you see your figures got shift from your 12 days down to 5.4 or something like that. You're like, happy days. Now we've not spent a load of money because we've spent it in the right way, at the right targeted. You wouldn't go into advertising your product and going through it on every single avenue, willy-nilly, without actually doing any sort of research whatsoever. You'd research it, you'd plan it, you'd work out what the thing's in, you'd work out what the best strategies are in, you'd do all your sort of research. This is the same thing of how we can keep people in, how we can keep the business running. It is the same thing. You are doing your foundations first to improve your situation so you know what to bring in that'll bring the best bang for your book. Now, I do do this as a workshop as well. You don't have to have just the sort of free sort of 10 sessions one a month sort of thing to come and listen to it. We can do these as a sort of workshop and everything, like in person, online, whatever. And I will be putting an advert out there of how that can actually be. And you can buy the report. I re I tend not to want to really do that too much because it takes up so it's bloody time, but um internally for yourselves, once you've got it in, because you've got all the power to be able to do that, it's a lot quicker for you guys because you're working with your own data. I'm sort of working with data that people give me, and then I've got to work it all out, so it's slightly different, and it is just me, um, unless you haven't noticed, uh, and everything. I do everything the recording, the the the podcast and the editing, the advertising, the talking about things that we say absolutely everything. So, and I am chronically ill and obviously autistic, so it is a lot, so I tend not to really want to do many of the reports, but I will, I will, for the if if people want to pay it, I will happily do a report and everything. But I do enjoy this side of things of talking about it and helping you guys do your own reports because let's be honest, I could do it, sell you a report absolutely fantastic, and you can show you all how it does, looks great and everything, but wouldn't it be so much better that in the background you could do it yourself and then you can do it every year, so you don't have to buy it every year, you can just do it every year and everything. That's usually a better one. That's the reason why I do this and and and the workshops. So let's get back, let's get back. We'll come up, we'll do a somewhat advert for that later on. I'll pop it on, I'll pop it on as a separate little thing or something. So, trends, trends and why it's important to act now, unless you have not got through to you yet. So looking ahead, onus projects, um sorry, or just projects, so we say, uh wage growth slowing to 3 to 4% in 2026. Well, the CIPD warns that turnover could rise to 25% if dissatisfaction lingers. Distractions. With hybrid working enriched or entrenched, so we say, studies show they are worsening. Up to two hours daily in poor setups. I'm gonna look at recruitment.com again. I will post all these in. And ripples one bad exit can spike team stress per 2025 IPPR data on £103 billion in sickness costs. Now ignoring benchmarks means flying blind. We've just talked about it there, but using them that turns risks into return on investment opportunities. So takeaways, from this episode two on our workplace auditing, we want to build on last episode's baseline. Now pick a benchmark. Now it could be anyone, I'll mention one, but you pick your own. So you got sickness days, hiring costs, whatever, and estimate your comparison. We are likely to be X percent above or below the UK average based on this metric with a potential impact of X. So that that's your homework is I want you to pick one of your metrics that we've just talked about there. Your wage one's usually the good one because you've already got your baseline figures. What I would say is uh look at your baseline figure of what it is, so 27,000 is the example. Now 27,000 against national, you are obviously 12,000 pounds less than the national average. But look at your town average or city average. What is the average there? How do you compare against your competitors in the same area? So like I say when searching, look for Preston, for example, that wage in Preston, average wage in Preston, you get one press, and then look at it for average wage in Preston, tech field, finance field, blah blah blah blah blah, and it will give you the average for that. If you're a finance company and everything as a as an average. So once you've got your average of each one, you've so you've got town, UK, and do worldwide if you're if you're looking at some point of doing worldwide, do worldwide, why not? Uh, and then you've got your three averages there, and then you look at yours, and how do you stack up against the others? Now, if on average on point, then you know then that's probably not one of the things that you gotta worry about. Great. If you're above wages, fantastic. You more people are gonna come to you because you pay more and everything else, but you also offer other benefits. So that's the thing I want you to be looking at is looking at I want you to look at the UK national, how you compare with your UK national, how you compare in your industry as well to the UK national, because UK national is based on across the board all jobs, not based in your sector. So pick it for UK national sector, then also look at it for the other areas as well. Really important. So that's that's your homework, and so our next episode uh we are going to be so we've got behind the edge, and we've also got our illness is not a burden. So our next episode of Illness Not a Burden, uh, we're gonna be looking at CKD, where that is chronic kidney disease in the workplace, obviously, um how it impacts the workplace, um, strategies for the individual, and obviously the inclusive workplace as well. So that's CKD, and then we'll be doing another behind the edge episode that we'll talk a little bit about news. That's gonna be on the collective uh that's coming out in April. Uh that'll be where you can actually go on and uh make this have discussions with other people about things going on. A lot of these episodes will be on there, there'll be some of the workshop options in there to do to do this sort of audit all at once on in sort of workbooks, there'll be guides in there, there'll be lots of things. It is paid uh and everything, because you know, gotta make some money somehow. Uh, but uh you know, but there there is that on there. Uh so we'll be talking about that in the next uh Behind the Edge, and then after that, we will come back to episode three of the audit. So if you've enjoyed that, um I I would really appreciate uh you know subscribing uh to everything, uh sending me a little message. You know, you can send uh thing, do a review, uh tell me tell me what your thoughts are, get involved. Um I'm interested to hear from you if if this is is I this is actually working out. And if you're interested in sort of like a workshop side of it, do you know drop me a line for that as well. I'd really appreciate it. So I have been Elliot Evans, and this has been The Chronic Edge Unleashed. As we talk about things and everything, um everything's looking a bit weird at the moment around the life and everything. Um, but you know that it's not the time to be standing still on these types of things. It it is honestly time to unleash your edge, you know, and that is unleashing your life your edge in work, in your business, and ultimately your life. So as I've been Elliot, and this has been The Chronic Edge Unleashed, and I'll see you soon. Thank you. Bye bye.