2024.02.28

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As a leader, what’s your response when one of your staff is working while sick? Likely you are conscientious and nudge them to take the day off.

But they probably don’t listen.

Estimates for the prevalence of full-time employees who work even though they are sick routinely come in between 50 and 90+ percent, depending on the survey.

It might make financial sense for the 14% of full-time workers who don’t have sick leave benefits - but what about the other 86% who do have sick time (BLS)? Why are they working while sick?

One important reason is that their bosses do.

And lest we chock this up to the pandemic, it was happening pre-COVID.

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Leaders as Role Models

Are you known for being a healthy role model, visibly taking sick days as needed?

More likely, you might have inadvertently normalized working while sick, especially since working remotely is so widespread now.

Know this - your staff notices your behavior and takes cues from it.

A paper published in February 2020¹ finds that when leaders work while sick, it results in their employees doing the same.

Specifically, leader presenteeism (i.e., working while sick) predicts employee presenteeism.

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Break the Cycle

If your staff’s health is important to you, then you can use your own behavior to influence it.

Normalize not working when you aren’t feeling great. Perhaps go as far as proactively taking an afternoon off at the first sign you’re getting run down. Explicitly model this to your staff (and colleagues!).

When you’re out on a sick day, normalize not being “available if you need me”. Be clear that you won’t be checking your messages and have standing orders for how time-sensitive decisions are made in your absence.

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Resistance

Though your own health is enhanced by not working when you are sick, and your staff’s well-being is impacted positively, many leaders will still resist taking a day off even when they need one.

There are five common reasons:

• It’s hard for mission-driven leaders to admit they need a day off.
• They don’t like the feelings that come with taking a day off.
• It’s a hassle to reschedule things.
• Progress is held up without them.
• It creates additional work for them.

If any (all?) of the items on that list describe you, devote some time to troubleshooting those underlying issues so that you’ll be more willing to take a day off the next time you need it.

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¹Research Citation: Carolin Dietz, Hannes Zacher, Tabea Scheel, Kathleen Otto & Thomas Rigotti (2020) Leaders as role models: Effects of leader presenteeism on employee presenteeism and sick leave, Work & Stress, 34:3, 300-322, DOI: 10.1080/02678373.2020.1728420. Ungated version.

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