No wonder the flu spreads so rapidly through the workplace once flu season hits: A third of U.S. workers refuse to stay home when they suspect or know they are sick.
Thus reported Bloomberg, basing its conclusion on a Procter & Gamble Survey Monkey poll of 15,000 employees in 15 countries last summer. The company told Bloomberg that 334 of the 1,000 U.S. employees surveyed said they often show up to work when they know they should take a sick day.
This syndrome, known as "presenteeism," has various deleterious effects. People are being paid to work when they're really not up to it. They're often not doing good work, which must be redone or, worse, erodes the company's reputation. And, of course, they're exposing others to an illness when they're showing up with something contagious, like the flu.
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So why do they do it? The top reasons:
- Work pressures (44.9 percent);
- Financial concerns (42.5 percent);
- Fear of falling behind at the office (33.5 percent).
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
