How is it calculated?

It is calculated by looking at the sickness over a period (often a year, but could be any time period) and counting the number of sickness days [D], and the number of sickness episodes [E] (a consecutive period of sickness).

The Bradford Formula:

You can see how Bradford Formula emphasises sickies from the following two examples:

Why is it hard to calculate?

• Manual checking is usually needed
• Time consuming
• Highly repetitive
• Easy to miscount episodes

If you are using Excel or a database to track absence, calculating the Bradford Formula can be very time-consuming. This is because calculating sickness episodes has to be checked manually for each employee. Factors such as half-days, bank holidays, part-time working, shifts, and tie-in with other absence must all be taken into consideration.

In the example above, the Bradford Formula should count the sick days shown in green as one episode, rather than two, because the time between Friday and Wednesday were all non-work days for this employee. The Saturday and Sunday were the weekend, Monday was a bank holiday and Tuesday the employee took off as a paid holiday.