Study:
Do your boss a favor and call in sick
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — American workers
should stop trying to be heroes and just
stay home when they’re sick—
it could be cheaper for their employers,
according to a study.
Workers who come in sick cost their employers
an average of $255 each per year, according
to Cornell University labor researchers.
Sick
employees have difficulty concentrating,
work more slowly and have to repeat tasks,
bogging down productivity, according to
the study.
Economists
refer to slack productivity from ailing
workers as ‘‘presenteeism,’’
and the Cornell study said it may cost employers
even more than absenteeism due to illness.
Other studies have suggested that presenteeism
costs U.S. businesses $180 billion annually
in lost productivity.
‘‘The
study doesn’t mean people should stay
home sick at every sniffle,’’
said Ron Goetzel, director of Cornell’s
Institute for Health and Productivity Studies
in Washington, which conducted the research.
‘‘It
says this is a very large category of expenses,
even exceeding the costs of absenteeism
and medical and disability benefits, and
part of the problem is that employers have
not yet fully recognized the financial impact
it can have on their business.’’
The
impact of employee absenteeism is well documented.
Figuring out how much it costs to come to
work sick, however, has been more elusive,
because of a lack of accepted measurement
standards.
Lori
Rosen, a workplace analyst for CCH Inc.,
a Riverwoods, Ill.-based trade group that
does an annual nationwide survey on absenteeism,
acknowledged presenteeism is a problem but
said absenteeism still costs employers more,
an average of $645 per employee per year.
‘‘Presenteeism
might be more costly if you have an employee
start an epidemic and you knock out the
whole office,’’ Rosen said.
‘‘With absenteeism, though,
you have to consider overtime, hiring a
temp, and a whole bunch of other costs besides
the work not getting done.’’
Goetzel
said the Cornell study, published in the
April issue of the Journal of Occupational
and Environmental Medicine, is the first
to add the cost of on-the-job productivity
losses from common health problems to an
employer’s total health-related expenses.
To
obtain their figures, the Cornell researchers
analyzed information from a medical database
of about 375,000 employees. They combined
the data with findings from five published
productivity surveys for 10 health conditions
that commonly affect workers.
The
study found that presenteeism accounted
for 61 percent, on average, of an employee’s
total medical and lost-productivity costs.
The
researchers looked at such ailments as colds,
the flu, headaches, allergies, arthritis,
heart disease, asthma and cancer.
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