Workplace: Personal Days, Sick Days

The flu season may just be beginning, but many employees are not calling in sick because of the sniffles. Instead, they’re using sick days to handle holiday-related stress like shopping, being with family, or taking mental health days.

How do absences — legitimate or due to personal needs — impact employers and businesses, and what can employers do about it?

It’s not realistic to expect employees at 9 to 5 jobs to be able to do everything that needs to be done to maintain a healthy home, without taking “personal” days — days off from work that are used for personal matters rather than sick time off from work.

If employers understood that by taking care of their employees by granting a certain number of personal days a year, employees will be more productive.

In addition, employees will not lie when they take sick days for personal business because they just don’t have enough time to do everything. The lying creates a mistrust in the workplace because not only are the employers lied to, but employees may consider that they are not the only ones lying and that other people around them are lying, too. It’s not a great atmosphere for being productive and creative.