01/12/2018 / By Jhoanna Robinson
So you’re working at your desk, out in the field, or in the assembly line – wherever – when you notice that the girl beside you starts to sneeze loudly and cough badly. She looks distressed, and you realize that she is definitely down with something.
Here are some tips so that you won’t have to file for a sick day at the office, up your productivity level, and possibly have that raise by the end of the year.
There are also some things that management can do in order to contribute to lessening employee sick days. An employer might think that a policy of encouraging sick people to stay home and not report to work will result in more employees playing truant, but this actually contributes to providing a healthier working environment for employees. Sick workers will be allotted time to recuperate. At the same time, incidents when a healthy employee was contaminated by a sick one will be prevented.
As a matter of fact, a study that was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in 2010 showed that “presenteeism” (sick employees coming to work) cost employers as much as three times as absenteeism in terms of lost productivity.
Employers are advised to make “work-from-home” an option to employees who are feeling under the weather. They should make it easy for employees to access email and office servers in times of emergency.
It should also be company policy to allot time within the work day perform small exercises and activities that call for body movement, such as walking outside the office. According to studies, being cooped up indoors for a prolonged period of time, being sedentary, and being stressed are factors for incurring illness. (Related: ‘Sick building syndrome’ causing workers to suffer from headaches, sore throats and troubled breathing.)
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Tagged Under: contaminated surface, healthier working environment, infectious disease, influenza, pathogens, sick days, wash hands