It has to be somewhat of a miracle that I'm not dreadfully sick today. Yesterday, while catching a train to work, I was surrounded by people who looked more like patients than passengers. The guy sitting to my right was coughing as though he was trying to dislodge a live rat from his throat. The woman facing me was sneezing with a velocity that could have actually powered the train. And the bloke to my left was sniffling like some kind of inverse leaf blower.
GO HOME, I wanted to yell. No one is that important. No one is that necessary. Your workplace will get on fine without you for a day or two. Just. Go. Home.
Not that my protestations would have had any effect. These dedicated individuals would still have soldiered on, arriving at the office with their tissues and their lozenges, their desk quickly resembling a medical centre – in both sight and smell. They would have nonetheless got stuck into their work, stopping at regular intervals to spread their pollutants. On the photocopier, in the bathroom, on the kitchen bench. On the door handles, in the elevators, on pretty much everything. (And I'm not even a germaphobe. Seriously.)
More than 300,000 people die each year around the world as a result of contaminants they were exposed to at work, and almost two thirds of genuine sickies can be traced back to work-related infections. Two thirds! And of course there's a whole range of other numbers in relation to the financial impact that occurs when sick employees create a perverse multiplier effect, thereby worsening productivity. In Australia alone, it costs companies billions of dollars.
Research conducted by Griffith University, due to be published soon, used the quantitative data I just quoted as a springboard for studying some of the perceptions managers have about these contagious illnesses. Quite a few themes arose. One of the most prominent was in relation to the financial impact, which was more pronounced among smaller businesses than larger ones.
One participant, for example, noted that small businesses often get stuck with expensive overtime costs when they have to pay others extra to pick up the slack. As a result, since "[small businesses] have the bottom line as their driver … sometimes they cut corners or expect too much of their staff". Another put it like this: "Bigger organisations of course have the ability to perhaps share the load more evenly when people are sick, but of course in smaller organisations [it's] more difficult to do that."
All interviewees stated that when employees felt unwell, they should go home. "If they are sick, they're not gonna perform to their highest potential so they get a bit more irritable and probably be slower," said one manager, stating the obvious. Another said: "It just [adds] to their fatigue if they come into work crook … As much as it impacts on the work, it'll impact more if we don't [send them home]."
Except they're rarely sent home. They usually stay, valiantly chugging along, eventually leading to the widespread but unnecessary catch cry: "There's a nasty bug going round the office." Yes, there is, but there doesn't need to be. There really doesn't – so long as people, you know, just go home.
According to the researchers, some of those spreading the bug do so out of loyalty to their employer, because they feel bad about adding to their colleagues' workload, because they worry their absence is going to harm the company, or this: "They feel guilty that they're in a small business," as explained by one of the participants, reflecting a behaviour known as presenteeism.
In many other cases, though, the employees' presenteeism is neither altruistic nor forced upon them by an unreasonable employer: they've just simply run out of sick leave. So they come to work, ensuring it isn't very long before everyone else has used up theirs as well.
James Adonis is the author of Employee Enragement. Follow MySmallBusiness on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
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