Lost Workdays

What lost workdays are

Lost workdays (أيام العمل المفقودة) are the scheduled working days on which an employee could not do their work because of an injury or illness caused by work. They are counted by a rule the organisation writes, for instance beginning on the day after the incident and ending when the employee returns to their duties. The measure shows the duration and severity of injuries, not their number: take two injuries, one that produces a single day of absence and another that produces sixty. They are equal in the number of injuries and entirely different on this measure.

The measure is also called lost working days, and the meaning is the same. It is a management indicator that an organisation calculates to learn how heavily injuries weigh on its workforce, and the figure carries no statutory judgement. What counts as a work injury in the first place is a separate question from the calculation, and the glossary entry on work injury covers it.

What is counted as a lost workday

Every word in the name of the measure needs a written decision, or each person responsible will count in their own way:

• Working days, not calendar days. A day on which the employee was scheduled to work is counted. Their weekly rest day and the organisation’s holidays do not enter the count.
• The day of the incident. If the employee finished their day after the injury, that day is not counted as lost. If they left in the middle of it, the rule is written down: is it counted from the same day or from the next?
• Return on lighter duties. If the employee returns to work on duties lighter than those they performed before, the day may be counted as not lost because they attended and worked, or counted as lost because they did not return to their full job. Either choice is possible, but mixing them spoils the comparison.
• Long absence. What is done if the absence lasts for months, or the employee ends their relationship with the organisation before returning? A ceiling for the count or a rule for stopping is set.

Before all this comes agreement on what is counted as an injury or illness caused by work at all, since whoever enters an absence with no connection to the work inflates the figure. Absence through illness enters according to a rule the organisation writes for what it takes to be caused by work, and the statutory meaning of occupational disease is a separate question, for which see occupational disease.

How counting working days differs from counting calendar days

In a hypothetical case, an employee whose schedule runs from Sunday to Thursday is injured on a Tuesday while at work and finishes their day. They are absent on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and Saturday were not among their working days. They are then absent on Sunday and Monday, and return on Tuesday. The calendar days from Wednesday to Monday are six, but the lost workdays are four: Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and Monday. If the six were counted, a weekend would have entered that the employee would not have worked in any case.

How the lost workdays indicator is calculated for an organisation

The indicator consists of the total of lost days in a period, set against the volume of exposure in it so that two periods can be compared. Suppose an organisation has 60 employees, each working 160 hours in the month, and four injuries are recorded in it whose lost days are 1, 4, 12 and 30.

• Total: 1 + 4 + 12 + 30 = 47 lost days.
• Average severity: 47 ÷ 4 = 11.75 days per injury.
• Exposure hours: 60 × 160 = 9,600 hours.
• Days per thousand hours: 47 ÷ 9,600 × 1,000 ≈ 4.9.

The basis in this calculation, a thousand hours, is a choice made for the example and not a rule. Whoever chooses another basis writes it beside the figure, because a figure with no stated basis cannot be compared with another. If employees who work reduced hours are included, they are converted to a full time equivalent (FTE) so that they are not counted as though they worked a full schedule.

Look at the average: 11.75 days applies to none of the four injuries. One injury caused 30 ÷ 47 ≈ 63.8% of the total. The overall figure can move because of one long incident more than because of a number of short ones, and for that reason the major cases are stated separately beside it.

How lost workdays differ from the occupational injury rate

The occupational injury rate measures the number of recorded work injuries set against the volume of exposure over the same period, so it answers the question of how many times an injury occurred. Lost workdays answer a different question: how many days each injury cost. The two indicators are examined together, because each alone gives an incomplete picture.

Compare two months for one organisation. The first month has four injuries with a total of 47 lost days. The second month has two injuries, one of a single day and the other of 60 days, so their total is 61 days. Assuming the same exposure hours, the injury rate fell by half, and the lost days rose from 47 to 61, an increase of 14 days. Whoever looked at the rate alone would think matters had improved, when in fact they are heavier. The reverse also holds: the number of injuries may rise while their days fall, because all of them are minor.

Both indicators depend on reporting. If supervisors’ bonuses are tied to a fall in lost days, the measure turns into a measure of silence: an injured employee may be returned early to light duties so that it appears they did not miss work, or the incident may not be recorded. The indicator serves prevention as long as reporting continues and is not punished.

How lost workdays figures are used in prevention

The value of the indicator is that it points to where effort should go. The overall figure is broken down by site, shift and type of work, and the question is asked where it concentrates. Suppose the 47 days are distributed as follows: the warehouse 34 days, the delivery service 12, and the offices one day. The warehouse’s share is 34 ÷ 47 ≈ 72.3%, so the work begins with the warehouse tasks: what is lifted there, with which equipment, and in which hours. That does not mean the offices need nothing, but that limited effort goes first to where the days gather.

The distribution is examined over more than one period. If the concentration of days in the warehouse persists over three consecutive months, it is a signal of a fault in the way the work is done, and if it appears in a single month it may be a passing incident that does not call for changing a procedure.

Indicators to examine alongside lost workdays

• Unplanned absence. The absenteeism rate is the ratio of days of unplanned absence to available working days. It covers every unscheduled absence whatever its cause, whereas lost workdays concern absence from an injury or illness caused by work.
• Attendance without capacity. Presenteeism is being at work while unable to perform as one should. That is what lost workdays do not capture, because the employee is present.
• The pattern of absence. The Bradford factor is a score calculated from the number of absences and the total of their days for each employee, giving more weight to frequency than to length. It concerns patterns of absence, not their causes, so injuries are brought into it only by a written rule.
• The underlying hazard. Occupational risk assessment is a systematic examination of the work environment and its tasks to identify what may cause harm to the worker. It directs effort to the places where lost workdays gather.

Who records and who reviews lost workdays

The indicator needs someone responsible for the record. The health and safety officer can take that on, being the person to whom the organisation assigns the carrying out of prevention duties and the tracking of injuries. For each incident the record holds its date, its type, the number of lost days, the date of return and its conditions, without medical details that the count does not need.

The figures are reviewed at a regular meeting of people who know the sites. A safety committee is an internal body an organisation sets up to follow the application of prevention duties and to review accidents and near misses, and it is a natural place to review these figures if the organisation has a committee.

How a gradual return is counted in lost workdays

An employee may return in stages: some days working half the day, then whole days on lighter duties, then a return to their full duties. A rule of “absent or present” is not enough in this case. A rule is written for each stage: is a half day of attendance counted as a whole lost day or as half of one? Does the count end at the first attendance or at the return to full duties? Suppose the organisation chose to count a day worked for half the day as half a day. An employee who was absent for six days and then worked half days for ten days has 6 + (10 × 0.5) = 11 lost days. Whoever chose to count a whole day for each partial attendance arrives at another figure, 16, and the difference lies in the rule and not in what happened.

Where errors arise in calculating lost workdays

• Counting calendar days. The figure swells because rest days and holidays enter it.
• Changing the counting rule between two periods. An improvement or a decline then appears whose cause is the rule and not what happened.
• Measuring performance by lost workdays. Tying supervisors’ appraisal or bonuses to the figure can push towards hiding incidents.
• Comparing with another organisation’s lost workdays. Its rule and its basis may differ from yours.
• Settling for the total. It hides the fact that one long incident made up a large part of the figure.

What figure is acceptable for lost workdays

In the sources we reviewed, we found no authoritative source that sets a reference figure for lost workdays in the Saudi market.

Lost workdays are interpreted by comparing the organisation with its own history, under the same rule and the same basis, and not with another organisation. What to watch for is a rise at a particular site or in a particular shift, or a concentration in one type of work, since that is what shows where to act.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.