If You're Sick, Stay Home
January 16, 2008
By John Wilwol
Flu season has arrived, which means it's game time for your immune system. Soon, your office will probably feel—and sound—more like the waiting room at an infirmary than a workplace. So, how will you manage your organization through this period without suffering major losses in employee productivity? According to the human resource specialists at CCH, the answer involves convincing employees to follow a logical policy: If you're sick, stay home. If you're not, do your part to stay healthy.
CCH's 2007 Unscheduled Absence Survey of over 300 human resource executives found that many employers say a large amount of personnel come to work even though they have a cold or the flu, potentially spreading the illness to other healthy staff members.
But sick employees are not only a risk due to their contagious symptoms: They're also a liability in terms of production, attention to quality and safety. "We all know what it feels like to have the flu—you're not operating at 100 percent, you may not even be operating at 50 percent," says CCH Employment Law Analyst Brett Gorovsky. "When you start thinking about that in terms of what you're contributing to the workplace versus what risks you're introducing, the bottom line for most organizations is that it's in everyone's best interest for sick workers to simply stay away."
A concept easy enough in thought, but harder in practice. Sick employees almost never stay away. It's a phenomenon known as "presenteeism"—that is, present in body but otherwise absent. And according to the study, it happens a lot. Eighty-seven percent of employers report that employees still show up when they're ailing from a minor illness that can easily be spread.
So, why do they show up?
CCH says that two-thirds of employees say they feel there is too much work to be done—or deadlines to meet—to take a day off. Other reasons employees gave in the study include: not wanting to use vacation time, a desire to save sick time and fear of discipline.
"Employers have to examine their absence control and workplace policies to make certain they are not causing unintended consequences," says Gorovsky. One of the first things employers should combat is the notion that employees need to "tough it out" when they're ill, otherwise known as the "hero worker" mentality. This is especially important in regard to supervisors. Gorovsky says, "Employees are in tune with the differences between what management says and what it means, and when they see their supervisors coming in sick, they're convinced that's what's expected of them also."
In addition to altering the culture of your workplace, CCH recommends addressing some its policies. For example, if an employee takes a sixth day of sick leave when only five are allowed, normally he or she is docked pay or vacation time. But CCH says organizations should be wary of such practices because they can force employees to show up when they should be at home. Instead, the study recommends a carry-over policy, where unused sick time can be carried over into the next year.
Finally, the study recommends adopting wellness programs coupled with company-sponsored flu shots, a growing trend among companies across the board. "With the costs of health care continuing to rise and presenteeism adding to that cost, employers are recognizing that keeping workers healthy is the most cost-effective approach they can follow," says Gorovsky. "Wellness and flu shot programs are now among the top three work-life programs organizations offer, topped only by employee assistance programs."
Read more about the presenteeism phenomenon at Incentivemag.com.
|
RSS