An IT guy at a San Francisco tech startup comes to work looking like death warmed over near the end of flu season. He is visibly ill and sweating. Unfortunately, he’s also responsible for installing vital software to everyone’s computers in the office and doesn’t want to take off sick in the middle of the upgrade.
His colleagues beg him to go home, telling him they’ll be OK. Everyone is overreacting, he says, and pretends to lick their keyboards and cough on everything.
The upgrade continues despite his illness and soon people are calling in sick. All told, 20 percent of the workforce was out sick for multiple days; a few had to be hospitalized. He is confronted with this; his response: They’re whining.
This true story unfortunately isn’t that uncommon. Even though 82 percent of HR managers in a recent study by OfficeTeam said their company encourages staff to stay home when they’re sick, 85 percent of workers in the same survey announced that they have gone to the office while sick anyway.
The takeaway? If managers want to keep their teams healthy, they’ve got make the message a lot clearer, and also practice what they preach.
According to that same survey, people say they work while sick because they feel well enough to work and they don’t want to fall behind.
It’s tricky to determine whether a person who thinks they don’t need to call in sick is, in fact, right. When people have been sick and are on the mend again, they might still sound terrible but feel much better. But conversely, people are often contagious a few days before they start exhibiting symptoms. “It’s those days when they’re still coughing but their fever has broken that an employee might think, ‘I’m lethargic, but if I go ahead and drive in, I could get my work done,’ ” said Claire Bissot, managing director of CBIZ HR Services.
Not having sick days, saving sick time in case they need it later, and not wanting to burden co-workers with extra work were other common survey responses. “A lot of times, people feel guilty about making colleagues take up the slack for work they’ve left behind,” said HR consultant Arquella Hargrove of Meta Training and Consulting in Houston. Whatever the reason, as Lisa Oyler, HR director at Access Development Corp. in Salt Lake City points out, workers would be much better served taking real time off to recuperate fully. “If you take care of yourself, you’re going to get better quicker.”
Again, it’s not just about the worker but also their colleagues. “When you’re contagious, think about your community and stay home.” Oyler said. When employees don’t heed this advice, management needs to intervene. Oyler recalled a time when a colleague came into work with a scratchy throat. “As soon as everyone found out his kids had strep, our manager sent him home.” Not every boss reacts so well, though. Bissot was stunned at the story about the office epidemic at the San Francisco tech startup and said, “Shame on that manager. I would have said, ‘Here’s a mask and gloves, now teach me how to do what you need to do so you can go home.’ ”
Managers can avoid having to take a forceful stand against sick colleagues by making it 100 percent clear it’s OK for anyone to be out sick. “Deadlines are deadlines, but employees’ health is also important,” Oyler said. “You can’t make employees feel guilty. If an employee wakes up sick, there should be no doubt in their mind that they should stay home.”
Prevention Plans
Companies can do a lot to encourage wellness in the workplace. Influenza costs the American economy $87 billion in lost productivity each year, but only about half of Americans get vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Getting vaccinated is the No. 1 way to prevent flu, according to the CDC. It’s especially important for pregnant women, senior citizens and people with asthma, diabetes or certain other immune-compromising conditions, as they’re at higher risk for flu-related complications.
The CDC recommends hosting a flu vaccination clinic in the workplace to provide shots at low cost or no cost. That makes it as easy as possible for employees to protect themselves and check off that annual task from their to-do lists.
Bissot’s company opens up its flu vaccine clinic to family and friends of employees as well. “I think inviting the whole family in is a great idea, because if the kids are sick, the parents stay home sick,” she said.
There’s no such thing as emphasizing it too many times: “Stay home if you’re sick” is a message that employees need to hear again and again. “HR can communicate it but it doesn’t really mean anything unless employees hear it from their managers,” Oyler said.
Posting fliers encouraging thorough hand-washing and healthy sneezing hygiene can help.
“The more places you remind people to wash their hands and use hand sanitizer, the better off you are,” Bissot said. “During this season, you can make a fun gift out of it,” she added. “You can print a reminder and deliver it to everyone with tissues and two Emergen-Cs to raise awareness.” She recommends that companies buy hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes and facial tissues in bulk to make them easily accessible in the office.
Beyond influenza, diseases such as norovirus can spread like wildfire in a workplace. Often described colloquially as “stomach flu” or “food poisoning,” the gastrointestinal malady is highly infectious and spread both by direct contact and through the air.
Knowing that germs can live on hard surfaces for up to 72 hours, Bissot recommends talking to the office’s cleaning crew to make sure they are sanitizing doorknobs, kitchen appliances and vending machine buttons. “It may cost the company a little extra,” Bissot said, “But one hour of a cleaning crew compared to having seven to 10 people out of every 50 sick is worth it.”
Staying Flexible
It’s one thing for a staff member to come to work sick to avoid falling behind, but managers should also be aware of employees’ economic reasons for working while sick. “Nonexempt people might not be paid for sick days, so if you have someone that really needs to be paid and be working, they’re going to come sick,” Hargrove said. The same goes for people who have run out of days in their PTO banks. She advises managers to be as flexible as they can to keep infectious workers out of the office. “If they come in and you have to send them home, maybe you can allow them to make up that time in the same payroll period.”
Allowing people for whom it’s practical to work from home to do so is one option to get teams through contagious illnesses unscathed. “If they really need to be there, though, we can come up with a creative solution like setting them up in a private office on a critical day,” Oyler said.
It’s important for leaders to have a contingency plan for flu season and beyond. It’s safe to assume a few folks will get sick at any given time. Managers should know in advance what resources are at their disposal. “Be proactive and make sure there’s a backup plan, so if someone is out, someone else can pick up the slack,” Hargrove said. “If people can work from home, that’s fine. If you have someone out for too long, maybe bring someone in on a temporary basis.”
And managers should remember that employees will follow the boss’ lead: Supervisors need to be willing to call in sick themselves.
“It all starts with managers,” Bissot says. “You can’t try to enforce a rule when you aren’t following it yourself. If you contaminate other people, you’ll just make things harder for yourself.”
Brandi Britton is a district vice president for OfficeTeam, a staffing service company based in the Bay Area. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.
You’re assuming that managers have consciences and work for companies that don’t have draconian HR policies left over from the eighteenth century -or the dreaded “unwritten rules” that aren’t official policies, but just how things are done. At one employer I am familiar with, there are no such things as excused absences. Any unplanned absence, regardless of reason, is an “occurrence” and basically a strike against the employee. Too many occurrences, forget that promotion. A few more, go to the top of the lay-off list. A few more than that, disciplinary action for “excessive absenteeism.” Do employees at that company come to work sick? You bet. It’s career suicide not to. Remember, a large percentage of Americans avoid taking their earned vacation time for fear of being labeled a “slacker.” Then there is the situation many Americans face – no paid sick leave. Yeah, they can call in sick, but if they do, they’ll be short a day’s pay at the end of the week. They’re probably barely making ends meet, so if they stay home sick, the kids don’t eat. There is a lot more to this situation than tech folks who refuse to miss work because they think they are irreplaceable. And there is a lot more to be addressed than making a few front line supervisors “aware”.
All good and valid examples, but…….. As you’ve read this article, and must care about the subject matter, what are you doing to change the “culture of absenteeism” at your company? The HR Manager / Director / VP must know the repercussions of people coming to work sick! Selling it to Management should be a no-brainer, but in most cases, no one has the “morale courage” to do so, so the problem continues to exist. If a company can’t afford to have any employee off for a few days, they’re failing in more ways than one.
In my experience, it’s not just a single company, but rather entire industries that follow this modus operandi. The mantra of the 90s was “lean and mean” which was simply a metaphor for cut staffing to the bone. In those situations, having someone off for a few days *is* a big deal. Especially if someone from management has to step into a front line role in order to cover the staffing shortage. They tend not to like that very much. Lean and mean also tends to go hand in hand with attitudes like “if an employee disappoints you, punish them.” This is still the norm for most operations on the low end of the pay scale- retail, food service, hospitality, unskilled labor, etc. It’s very hard for one person to have much impact on those cultures that are married to a “tight labor scheduling” model. Managers are told they must do more with less, or the company will replace them with someone who will. Front-line employees are viewed as literal “human resources” to be used up and tossed aside. That’s what the American workplace looks like for people who make less than six figures. They don’t have time to take a moral stand. They’re trying to survive.
Still boils down to the principle of staying at a job that treats you like a sub-human. The problem with the mentality you mention is that it “begets” others that lean to treat their people the same way when they achieve a management position. Not many people have the courage or vision to break free from the corporate jungle to do what they love and be their own boss, so they settle for being abused and underappreciated for years and years. Not the way to live a life, but you get what you settle for!
Not everyone has the financial ability to quit their job and start their own business. But lets not let that stop us from blaming the victims.
This has been a great conversation to follow. Thanks for offering up your interesting perspectives and opinions here. Let’s hear from others as well!
Thanks for all the great interaction on this article! There’s no doubt that different companies have different policies, but what’s important is that employers and managers start realizing it can be better in the long run to encourage workers to stay home when they’re sick. And those in leadership positions need to set the example from the top. Employees should keep in mind that there’s nothing more important than their own health. There should be a plan in place for covering when someone can’t come to work, whether it’s team members picking up the slack or hiring temporary workers. If an employee really must complete assignments or feels well enough to do so, working remotely is a good option, if a position allows for it. Another thing companies must recognize is that in today’s market, professionals frequently have other options if they’re not being treated with respect and dignity.