Working Sick
October 24th, 2005 by Sarah WhiteNearly half of all workers surveyed recently say they often come to work when they feel sick. Only 8 percent said they never go to work when they feel under the weather, according to a survey by staffing company OfficeTeam.
Nearly 600 people were surveyed. When asked how frequently they go to work when feeling ill, these were the responses:
Very frequently 49%
Somewhat frequently 31%
Somewhat infrequently 12%
Not at all 8%
Employers often don’t realize their workers are coming to work sick. When 150 executives were asked how often workers come to work sick, they said:
Very frequently 21%
Somewhat frequently 51%
Somewhat infrequently 25%
Don’t know/no answer 3%
Interesting stuff. Are we really that committed to our jobs that we don’t want to take time off when we don’t feel well? Or are we so overworked we don’t feel like we can afford to take time off? Or that we’ll be seen as lazy if we don’t show up for work? I don’t know the answer, but it’s worth thinking about as cold and flu season nears.
Sarah White wrote this on October 24th, 2005 and filed it under Healthy Living, Women's Health, Men's Health, Health & Aging |
October 25th, 2005 at 2:49 am
This doesn’t apply to me currently as I mostly work from home, but when I would still go to the office, my rule was simple: if it was contagious, I wouldn’t show up. Playing the brave woman is nice and all, but if half of the office ends up with tonsilitis or enteritis the next week because I spread my germs everywhere, it doesn’t help productivity. (My co-workers and boss agree on that; in fact, I got told to not show up if I were to catch such an illness.) If it wasn’t contagious, then it’d really depend on how I felt. You can’t really do good work if suffering from food poisoning, after all.
Of course, I have quite a solid health in general, aside from the odd little cold here and there, so I’m probably not a useful statistics!
October 26th, 2005 at 2:14 am
Okay, I don’t know what happened, I thought I was logged in with my user account here… The above comment is mine. I stand up for my opinions.