Are Your Employees Making Each Other Sick?
Employees who try to tough it out could be hurting your business.

By Sara Prem

Every time an employee is absent due to illness, it’s an expensive disruption to your business. Missed deadlines. Rescheduled meetings. Lost opportunities. Absenteeism due to illness puts a strain on your entire operation.

On the other side of the coin is the sick employee who comes to work despite a stuffy nose, fatigue, upset stomach or even fever. Studies have shown that productivity drops for employees who report for work. This phenomenon, dubbed “presenteeism” because the employee is present but not fully functional, creates a downward spiral that results in the spread of illness in the workplace and further loss of productivity.

In a survey of men and women business professionals, commissioned by the makers of Aleve cold medicine, 67 percent of the respondents said they’d have to be on their deathbed to stay home when they have persistent cold and flu symptoms. And despite having the benefit of sick days, most workers don’t use them at all. With symptoms lasting up to a week or more, seven out of 10 polled by Aleve said they try fighting their symptoms with cold remedies and tough it out at the office.

Sick Policies
Does your sick day policy encourage illness at work? Some employee benefit policies lump vacation and sick leave together. According to the Society for Human Resource Management in Alexandria, Va., the proportion of companies that provided general paid time off rather than separate amounts of vacation time and sick leave jumped from 12 percent in 2000 to 62 percent in 2001. That is based on a benefits survey sent out annually to more than 750 human resources professionals.

In the past a company might offer the employee 12 days of paid vacation and five days of paid sick leave annually. Now a company might give 17 days of general paid leave. The result seems to be that ill employees often go to work when they’re sick rather than “waste” a vacation day. While it is easy to understand the conflict between being sick at work and losing a day at the beach, employees need to be encouraged to stay home when they’re sick to protect their co-workers and to practice healthy habits to protect themselves.

Slowing the Spread of Illness
Health experts estimate that 80 percent of infectious disease is spread by hand contact, not through the air by coughs and sneezes as commonly believed. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that hand hygiene is the single most important way to prevent the spread of infection. It is especially important to clean the germs from your hands when you’re sick or after handling raw food, especially meat and poultry.

A new survey released by the Soap and Detergent Association (SDA) reveals that the workplace is often a weak link in the fight to prevent the contraction and spread of infectious diseases. According to the 2001 SDA National Cleaning Survey, 40 percent of American workers neither wash their hands often enough or long enough. The survey also found that 58 percent of employers don’t encourage hand washing in the workplace.

The SDA survey suggests employers could be doing more to encourage hand washing. In addition to stocking soap and towels in the washrooms, employers should post hand-washing reminders. Simple reminder signs in bathrooms, kitchens and other community areas can dramatically improve compliance.

Medical experts have other suggestions to help employees stay well at work. First, drink lots of water and get plenty of rest. Stay on a healthy diet. Exercise, but don’t overdo it. And, take vitamins all year long, but especially going into cold and flu season.

Hand-Washing 101
The SDA recommends that people wash their hands often in the workplace. Times to wash are every time you use the restroom, before and after staff meetings when food is served, before and after lunch, after using someone else’s keyboard or tools, before and after any greeting activity and after using shared office equipment.

The SDA also offers these quick tips on how to wash your hands the right way:
1.    Wet hands with warm running water prior to reaching for soap, either bar or liquid.
2.    Rub hands together to make a lather. Do this away from running water so that the lather isn’t washed away.
3.    Wash the front and back of hands, between fingers and under nails. Continue washing for 15 seconds or more.
4.    Rinse and dry hands.

Sara Prem is a freelance writer specializing in corporation communications, marketing and advertising copy. She can be reached at (913) 492-2774 or at