We’ve all been there. Your alarm clock sounds and you feel like you have just gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. You can’t stop sneezing or coughing, your eyes are streaming and your nose is so red that you could be cast as Rudolph in the nativity play. You have a common cold or, it could be even worse – man-flu! So what do you do about it?
Do you drag your lurgee-ridden soul into the office and risk passing on your germs to all-and-sundry? Or, do you spend the day watching Jeremy Kyle and Deal Or No Deal on the box? As we enter the traditional cold and flu season, many of us will inevitably face this dilemma.
If you are infected with a cold, you will barely have the energy to wipe your running nose, let alone put in a good day’s work but, at least you can say that you came to work no matter what. Well done, you.
Offices are breeding grounds for bacteria and no matter how hard others will try to avoid breathing in your germs, they will inevitably catch whatever it is you have. And regardless of how many doses of Beecham’s we ram into our bodies, it isn’t going to stop others from becoming infected.
The problem is that Britons work longer hours than any of our European neighbours. And, as such, many of us feel obliged to our employers to turn up to work regardless of how dreadful we feel. But, once you get to work, your self-sacrificing approach will be nothing more than counter-productive, leaving your colleagues to mop up after you.
Indeed, in 2005/2006 more than 30 million working days were lost at a cost of £12bn to the UK economy as a result of sickness, according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
And, the amount of time that you take off work is also determined by the whether you are employed in the public sector or the private sector.
According to the Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD), public sector employees will take an average 10.3 days off sick a year, while a private sector employee will only take an average of 7.2 days per year.
Ben Wilmott, CIPD employee relations adviser, said: "A factor contributing to this is the clear difference in organisational structure between how absence is managed in the public and private sectors."
But just how many of us will be honest about why we are taking time off work?
In a recent survey, one in five British workers admitted that they had made up an excuse to call in sick. The survey, conducted by BUPA, also revealed that food poisoning or a cold was top of the list of excuses.
A similar report looked into the real reasons why people called in sick. It found that one-third of all respondents cited suffering from a hangover as their main reason and one in five said that they took the day off work to attend a job interview.
Not surprising, less than one third of managers actually believed staff were genuinely ill and nine out of 10 workers claim that they are unhappy when colleagues take sickies, mainly because of the extra work they would have to do in their absence.
However, if you are genuinely ill, the solution is simple: stay at home. Listen to what your body is telling you and concentrate on improving your health instead of impressing your boss.
And as tempting as it is to get someone else to do it for you, don’t feel guilty about telephoning your boss to tell him that you are sick and won’t be able to make it into work. Give yourself the time needed to rest and fully recuperate and, if you are one of the 66% of UK workers that can’t switch off from work when they are ill, then make yourself available via email.
