how do I calculate sickness absence percentage for the questionnaire

Sick leave is the number of days absent divided by the number of days available

The sick leave percentage is the number of working days absent due to illness, divided by the total number of available working days, times one hundred. VSME requests this figure at headcount level, meaning for the entire company and not per team or location. Use calendar days or roster days as your own sick leave registration or payroll administration already tracks them — VSME does not prescribe its own calculation method, so the method your sick leave system already uses (often in accordance with the Absence Standard Table) is a sufficient basis, provided you apply that method consistently between reporting years.

If you have no sick leave registration or no conclusive figure, then "not yet available" is a valid answer — better than an estimate you cannot substantiate. Some customers ask this question together with a question about occupational health and safety policy, and sometimes in combination with a question about work-related accidents resulting in sick leave. These are separate data points with their own source; do not confuse the sick leave percentage with the accident percentage, even if the questions seem similar to each other.

Basic module of VSME, social component

VSME places the sick leave percentage in the basic module under the social indicators, as part of the employee data that every reporting company can complete without using the extended module. The CSRD directive (Directive (EU) 2022/2464) does not directly require this figure for SMEs outside the reporting obligation, but because larger customers request this type of data through the supply chain, the question recurs in nearly every sustainability questionnaire that relies on VSME.