It's still early in the flu season, and already tens of thousands of people have fallen victim to the virus. This year, reports are predicting the worst flu season ever, and experts are seeing the virus spread at an alarming rate. Part of the reason for this is that when people get sick, they often drag themselves into work and end up spreading germs around their offices, getting even more people sick.
Why does this happen? Is it because these employees don't care about the health of their co-workers?
I don't think that's the case. I think that it's because so many employers discourage their employees to take sick time and make it next to impossible for a sick worker to take time off. A recent report at NPR covered this subject. They interviewed several people who all said that taking a sick day wasn't an option at their jobs. Either they would lose pay, lose their job or that they would be viewed as not being a “team player.”
Personally, I've worked for companies that didn't allow time off for illness and it was an awful experience. Even though they did provide 4 paid sick days each year, in order to use them, you had to give notice at least 24 hours in advance, and the request was approved based on the work load. Unfortunately, food poisoning, the flu and other sudden illnesses don't work that way. When a virus is spreading through the office, the odds were good that sick days may be denied because too many people were already out of work. Taking sick days would also bring about other disciplinary actions and could even mean having your hours cut significantly over the next couple of weeks as a punishment of sorts. For most of us, coming in when we were sick was the only option available.
Forcing employees to come in when they're sick is simply not good business practice. For employees with weaker immune systems, it can mean that they will catch every single virus going around – sometimes multiple times. Because of the lack of sick time, they will either struggle to continue to show up for work, even though they aren't able to be very productive, or they will end up losing their job.
It makes me wonder if corporate America actually cares whether or not their employees are healthy and able to work. It seems to me that providing ample sick time would be considerably cheaper than replacing employees each time they were sick. However, in this tough economy and tight job market, the fear of losing one's job and not being able to find another is enough to make anyone, no matter how ill they are, come in to work.
What can we do to stop this trend? Having to pick up the slack for co-workers who are out sick is hard, but it's certainly a better alternative than catching the illness yourself. What do you do when you see that one of your co-worker is obviously ill? Do you ask them to go home or congratulate them on their will power? What about when you're sick – do you take a sick day or come to work anyway? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Image Source: MorgueFile
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