Abstract
From 1st of July 2003 it is compulsory for companies with an average number of ten employees the latest two financial years to account sick leave in the annual report.
The government’s purpose with accounting of sick leave was partly to evoke an action from the companies’ side in terms of motion as an effect due to the awareness of the level of the sick leave. The government was of the opinion that the companies had too deficient knowledge in sick leave and that the knowledge about causes and costs had to increase.
In this paper three companies affected by the compulsory accounting of sick leave have been interviewed. The paper defines to only concern private companies. The companies were interviewed in purpose to form an opinion of whether the companies have changed their health promoting actions due to the application of the law. The purpose was also to study how the level of sick leave have developed in the different companies and how high knowledge about the relation between sick leave and its costs they were in posession of.
After studying the different companies the authors cannot discover any specific changes in the companies’ health promoting work as a result of the application of the law. The companies had also even before the application of the law knowledge about the costs related to sick leave. No one of the respondents are unfamiliar to an accounting of sick leave, but their opinions differ about whether there is a need for accounting being set of law or not.
Keywords: Compulsory accounting, sick leave, health promotion, annual report