Presenteeism costs employers more a year than absenteeism: Don’t go to work sick

February 20, 2009 – 10:31 pm – No Comment

So, it’s that time of year again. I know because I’ve already been through a fight with it since January. It’s cold and flu season. I even had a professor (who commutes from about an hour away) come into the class and say “I don’t know what it is about coming down here; it’s like everyone is dying.” She was referring to the fact that everything from the “stomach flu” to the actual flu is going around.

So, this brings up the question: When is it time to call in sick to work because you’re actually sick?
Well, anytime you’re sick just call in.

From MSNBC.com:

…there’s a financial price to coming to work ill. It’s called presenteeism, and it costs employers $180 billion annually, according to a 2007 study by the Society for Human Resources Management. That’s more than employers shell out for employee absenteeism, which costs only $118 billion a year.

Sick employees don’t just affect their own work; they infect co-workers who then need to take time off themselves. (Or who come in sick and spread the germs further.)

Most people do get paid time off. Some 57 percent of all private businesses offer paid sick leave, according to a 2007 report from the Department of Labor. Still, there’s a natural worry that if you don’t go in, the work won’t get done, or it will pile up so high you’ll never be able to get through it all. That’s especially true these days, when it seems everyone is doing more work with less resources.

“People don’t want to stay home and add to their co-workers’ workloads just because they’ve got the sniffles,” says Michael Smith, a physician who is chief medical editor for WebMD.com. “In the end it hurts more then it helps.”

You also don’t want to be the person who everyone is looking at when you cough, because all they are thinking is that they don’t want to get sick. And if they get sick, they will always blame you.

Source