Why Do Sick Employees Come to Work?

In the last few years, “presenteeism” has become an even bigger concern for many employers than absenteeism. While many HR/benefits managers hate the admittedly overused term, presenteeism is nevertheless a real issue in almost every worksite.

Most widely,  presenteeism takes the form of staff coming to work sick. They’re  unproductive and endanger peers. Meanwhile, the staff member is not forced to use a sick day. A bad deal for employers all the way around.

A recent survey by LifeCare revealed that 93% of staff (polled from 1,500 companies) admit that they at least ocassionally come to work when they’re sick enough to stay home. More important, the study  looked at the reasons why folks do it.

Troubling rationales

The No. 1 reason personnel cited for coming to work sick was a belief that they’d be “letting other individuals  down” if they call out. Nearly 30% of respondents cited this as their primary reason. Beyond that, the top responses were -

o  It’s too risky, as a result of office politics or culture, to take time off (26%)

o  The staff member is too busy at work to be able to stay home a day (15%)

o  The employee saves up sick days for childcare/eldercare emergencies (12%), and

o  The employee saves up sick days to use as extra vacation time (8%).

A lot of of these rationales are troubling to HR/benefits managers.

In the first place, supervisors who hassle staff members about taking legitimate sick time are, at best, being pennywise and poundfoolish.  Presenteeism costs more than absenteeism, once you figure in the uncharged sick days, lack of productivity and risk of other staff members getting sick.

You have more power than you think to change your organization culture when the “tough it out” mentality still applies to individuals  who come in sick. When senior level management is confronted with the real dollars and cents of presenteeism, decling the problem usually becomes a priority.  At the very least, firms shouldn’t invite it.

In terms of supervisor- and employee-education, repetition of the “stay home if you’re sick” message is the key. Eventually, it’ll sink in.

Of course, there’s still the problem â.” as evidenced by the survey â.” of employees who misuse their sick days by trying to hoard them for other purposes.

Adopting PTO, no-fault absence policies or use-it-lose-it sick leave are the three most common ways of decreasing the risk, but be aware that each of these policies have risks of their own.

At the end of the day, the more open the lines of communication are between senior management and workforce, the less prevalent the presenteeism problem becomes.