If you are the type of employee that drags yourself into the office no matter how sick you are I have news for you—your boss and colleagues would rather you didn’t. Don’t believe me? A new survey found 56% of employers say that “presenteeism” — when sick employees show up for work — is a problem for them. The reason: sick employees can weaken the corporate bottom line.
If you are sick, stay home. That’s the message employers’ are sending to their ill employees. According to the survey, people reporting for work not only have a lower rate of productivity, but they pass their illness around to other workers and customers.
The survey also found that more employers are taking steps to help overcome the rise in presenteeism.
For example, 62% of companies report that they send sick employees home while another 41% educate employees on the importance of staying home when they are sick. Interestingly, the survey found companies with low morale are the ones that have more ill workers showing up for work. In fact, 63% of companies with poor to fair morale reported presenteeism as a “major” problem, while only 50% of companies with good or very good morale see it as an issue.
I found the results most interesting especially since I just wrote about a blog about the weird and wacky excuses that some employees come up with to avoid going into work—when they are perfectly healthy. So what possesses a sick people to drag him or herself out of bed and into the office?
According to the survey about 66% of responding companies said they believe employees come to work when they are ill because they have “too much work to do/deadlines.” Fifty-six percent said there was no one available to cover their workload. Other excuses ranged from “Do not want to use vacation time” and “Fear of discipline” to “Want to save sick time for later in the year” and “Company loyalty.”
I used to work with a woman who routinely showed up to work battling various maladies. I always figured it was her prerogative to come in or stay home, until the day she got violently ill in our one and only working womens’ restroom causing it to shut down for 5 hours. I was six-months pregnant at the time and I was forced to use the mens room (disgusting to say the least). That was the day I decided that no one should come into work sick.
Related Articles:
Top 15 Unusual Excuses For Not Showing Up To Work