Have you ever “just” had a cold, and decided it wasn’t bad enough to keep you from working? Have you ever “toughed it out” and showed up to the office, even though you weren’t feeling 100 percent?

Or, if you’re a manager or employer, have you allowed it?

As the world learns more about COVID-19 and its long-term effects, we are coming to some realizations about our traditional expectations of illness and its relationship to the workplace. Though each state provides guidance and law on sick leave, there is a lot of gray area when it comes to the social side of getting sick and missing work. As a partner to thousands of employers and managers over the years, Allevity’s experience makes us confident when we say this: Sick people shouldn’t try to work, and their supervisors shouldn’t allow them to.

If you’re simply looking for legal guidance on what you must do when an employee tells you they’re sick, the law will be your compass, and we can help you make sense of it—just give us a call if you’re looking for advice on how to manage sick leaves. But before you do that, stop to consider how industry, in general, talks about employees. All you have to do is a quick Google search about “handling sick employees” to see the language being used:

• “How to deal with sick leave abuse”
• “What you can do when employees keep calling in sick”
• “Should you pay sick leave if you think your employee is playing hooky?”

And so on and so forth.

Our ever-increasing education about illnesses, communicable diseases, and the workplace continue to shape the proper way we should approach employees who call in sick (or those who clearly are sick, but still try to work). We’re also learning more about mental health—some have explored why employees play hooky in the first place. It’s clear: We need to decompress occasionally because our mental health not only affects our work but our physical health as well. All that said, American culture’s grip on the morality of being part of the labor force—i.e., work ethic—might be loosening, but it’s certainly not letting go any time soon.

If You’re Sick, Don’t Work

We need to begin with the caveat that we understand many are not in a position to miss a shift. Many jobs carry the risk that an employer will simply find a replacement. Such a management style is, unfortunately, a reality for many workers. The result is a work environment in which employees come to work with colds, or even low-grade flus. The work suffers, the employee doesn’t have the chance to rest and get healthy, and other employees get sick.

It is important to be aware of the stigma that calling in sick to work carries. A sick employee cannot control when a bug decides to disrupt their health. But when it happens, the work environment should not be one that villainizes the employee. The law provides employees with paid sick days for a reason. If you aren’t feeling well, it is your right to call in sick. Exercise your right.

Don’t Make Your Sick Employees Work

If an employee isn’t feeling well—especially if it is because of illness—give them the time they need to recover. You will miss their contributions for the day, of course. But it’s a small price to pay compared to multiple employees catching a bug and missing time.

Further—and maybe more importantly—you will demonstrate that you value your employee as a person and truly care about their health and wellbeing. People will remain loyal to supervisors and employers who take care of them; a recent study shows that the top factor in employees staying with an employer is the promotion of work-life balance. Honor the fact that your employees are people with personal lives, and in those lives, they get sick on occasion and need to rest when they do.

Don’t Stigmatize Sickness

Stigma, retaliation, shaming, guilt-tripping—whatever you call it, it has no place in a humane, professional work environment. People feel enough pressure from missing a day of work already. One in 3 say they have gone to work when they were sick, worried that nobody would do the work. There is no need to add to that anxiety by guilting a colleague for being sick. Remember the human.

Consider Sick Leave For Mental Health

Thirty-five percent of employees in one survey said they have called in to work when they were feeling physically fine. But is that where health stops? It is worth considering the overall wellbeing of your employees, and where the line may need to be between a sick day and a vacation day, obviously. If an employee calls in sick to work with the flu and you see them on TV in the stands at a baseball game that night, it’s probably an indication that the employee was physically fine! If they had the flu, they should feel guilty for going out to a big crowd, not for calling in sick.

But no person can work nonstop without experiencing fatigue. We feel stress, we experience anxiety, we fall into ruts, and when we do, we need a break. Acknowledging that such breaks are actually health-related (because mental health IS health, after all!), consider allowing sick leave to cover for mental health days instead of vacation leave. Many employers already offer such flexibility, as we learn more about the impacts of mental health. One really cool side effect: Your employees won’t feel pressured to avoid a stigmatized experience of calling in sick even when they’re feeling physically OK. They’ll have the opportunity to be honest with you. Normalize the need for a day to recover, relax, or recreate to get their mind reset for work.

The Bottom Line

Sick people should not work! It is not heroic to go to work sick, and it is counterproductive to allow sick people in the workplace, where others may contract illness. If you are struggling with how to handle employees who call in sick, please, chat with us!