how do I calculate my sickness absence percentage for the questionnaire

Absence percentage: hours, not reports

The sickness absence percentage is the number of sick leave hours divided by the total number of available hours, times one hundred. Concretely: over the chosen period, add up all absence hours from all employees, divide that by the total number of hours to be worked (i.e. contractual hours, not adjusted for holiday or leave), and multiply by one hundred. Calculate per calendar year, unless the questionnaire itself specifies a different period — some portals ask for the current financial year, others the most recent closed year.

Use hours, not the number of sick reports or number of sick days per employee. An employee who is sick for three days counts differently than someone who is absent for half a day, and the VSME basic module asks for the percentage, not for the number of cases. If you do not have these figures at hand — for example because payroll administration keeps track of it per employee but no one adds it up — then "not yet available" is a valid answer; filling in an estimate without underlying records is inadvisable, as most clients will follow up as soon as the figure stands out. This figure is often asked in the same breath as how many work-related accidents with absence have occurred in the past year, because both fall under the same social indicators.

Where that is stated in the VSME base module

The VSME basic module by EFRAG includes sickness absence as a social indicator alongside other personnel figures, such as the male-female distribution and training hours. The same module often also asks about does the enterprise have a health and safety policy at work, because absence and safety policy are together in most questionnaires. The basic module was drawn up as a voluntary, simplified standard for non-listed SME enterprises, partly as a result of the CSRD Directive (Directive (EU) 2022/2464), which requires larger enterprises to also report on their supply chain — that is why those figures end up with suppliers.