Too busy for a sick day?

Gone are the days of high absenteeism going unchecked. Companies are now clamping down so much on days off sick that a new survey has revealed that three quarters of employees still turn up for work when they could legitimately have stayed home sick.

The main causes of this are fears of letting colleagues deal with the workload, too much work piling up on your desk if you're not there and the fear of getting a bad record at work for absenteeism. Either way, sick people in offices ....where will this lead?

The report claims that the majority of us, some 71% still go into the office when we are unwell. The research also revealed that:

People working in marketing, advertising and PR were most likely to go into work if they were feeling unwell, whereas those in the charity sector and graduate trainees were least likely to soldier on. Women were more likely than men to go into the office if they were ill.

What this tells me is that the amount you are paid could be linked to your sense of obligation to the job (charity work and graduate trainees are not normally high earners), money can buy a sense of loyalty and that women appear to be more wary of being judged so ignore their poor health.

Either way, it is very frustrating to be sitting next to a clearly unwell person in the office who is kindly sharing their germs with you but perhaps now you can see why they're there.