Sick Yet? Managing Through H1N1 Season
November 17, 2009
As more and more of our friends and neighbors are experiencing the effects of the H1N1 virus, we thought we’d weigh in with some tips of our own.
As the flu season has unfolded, we’ve been receiving a variety of questions from our customers related to H1N1. Because we sell data collection devices (time clocks) through which over 30 million people per day clock their time, many of our customers are asking about strategies to reduce worker infection when many people are punching in and out through the same device. In addition, customers are asking how to use our software to track absences specific to H1NI. We created this resource guide to compile answers to these and other questions. In addition to the resources listed in the above referenced resource guide, there are excellent recommendations in these OSHA and SHRM sites related to prevention, presenteeism and FMLA compliance.
I’ve written a few posts in the past related to presenteeism; i.e. sick workers coming to work and negatively impacting the productivity of their co-workers. This phenomenon can affect all employers, some of whom still make it hard for sick workers to stay away. See this story on Walmart demerits for sick employees. This story is followed by over 100 comments from employees with similar stories to tell.
What’s your employer doing to minimize the impact of H1N1?
The Domino’s Effect - Presenteeism Among Food Handlers
April 17, 2009
While Domino’s has been in the news this week due to the unfortunate video hijinks of a couple of their workers in North Carolina, the issue of sick food handlers is one of serious and ongoing concern according to our board member, David Creelman who submitted the following food for thought:
Here is a big issue for organizations who have large numbers of workers who handle food (e.g. hospitality industry, food processing etc.) A ground breaking study by Toronto Public Health found that “between 20 per cent and 40 per cent of food-borne illnesses in restaurants can be traced to sick food handlers who transfer bacteria to diners through the food they prepare.” About 6% of Toronto’s citizens get sick every year due to sick food handlers — that’s a big public health issue.
This is clearly an HR issue since the main reason sick food handlers come to work is that they feel they can’t afford to take a day off sick.
No doubt this study will lead governments at all levels to get worried about companies who let sick food handlers come to work; so HR leaders had better be prepared to deal with the issue pro-actively.
The story on this study appeared in the Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com/article/619941
Just to add a bit of colour to this story, if you are the sort of person who routinely eats in the world’s top 10 restaurants you will no doubt be aware that the Fat Duck in London recently had to shut down when many diners became ill. One suspected cause for the outbreak of illness was that customers picked up a bug from sick staff.
The Summertime Crunch
May 31, 2008
Our latest workforce survey reveals that 69% of US workers polled plan to take off time between Memorial Day and Labor Day. This obviously presents challenges for employers who seek to keep their operations running smoothly throughout these peak vacation months.
According to our board member Steve Hunt, what employers should NOT do is discourage employees from using their vacation. This is especially true when managing employees in high stress jobs who might readily forego vacation if they thought it could adversely affect their careers. There is quite a bit of empirical research showing that vacation plays an important role in keeping people physically healthy in terms of managing stress. People who do not take vacation are likely to suffer decreased work performance and satisfaction over time. Vacations really do allow us to “recharge” and avoid burn-out - as such they can be thought of playing a similar role for ensuring a long-term, effective workforce as ensuring employees’ work schedules allow them to get a reasonable amount of sleep.
Dealing with Extreme Weather: An Inconvenient Truce
February 21, 2008
Today we’ve released the results of our most recent survey concerning the impact on the workplace of extreme weather. In Boston, we’ve had several severe workday snowstorms this year that ground the region to a halt. The picture here is from our storm on December 13th - when just about everyone’s commute became a nightmare. My one hour commute stretched to three, and I seriously considered abandoning the Mini Cooper in a snowbank. I was relatively fortunate to have a back road alternative. Other friends and colleagues spent up to six or seven hours getting home. Across the country, similar snow, wind and/or rain conditions have made this winter especially brutal.In our survey of 2810 working adults, 33% of respondents indicated that their commutes had been impacted by severe weather in the last 3 months. Once at work, employees note they are distracted from their jobs by concerns about how their commute will be impacted when they do leave, how they’ll provide alternative childcare or pick up arrangements, when or if their employers will decide to close early, etc. Employers, in turn, grapple with assessing the true severity of expected storms and determining the best course to ensure the safety of their employees while minimizing the adverse impact of closing or cutting back on staff. Read more
Super Bowl Sick Days
February 1, 2008
We’ve just published the results of a survey we did this week of 1430 full time adult workers regarding the likelihood that the Super Bowl will impact their attendance at work on Monday. According to our survey, 3% or about 1.5 million workers are likely to call in sick while another 4.4 million are likely to arrive late after having celebrated the big game.
Super Bowl-related absences could be particularly striking for organizations with a high population of Gen X and Gen Y employees, as the majority of the employed adults who say they may call in sick the day after the Super Bowl are males and females between the ages of 18-34 years (4 percent and 3 percent, respectively). Does that mean that the boomers are more responsible, or just that they can’t stay awake long enough on a “school night” to impact their ability to go to work the next day?
According to the Wall Steet Journal today, “U.S. employment unexpectedly tumbled last month for the first time in more than four years, fueling worries that the U.S. economy, which already limped into 2008, might soften further or even slip into recession in coming months. Nonfarm payrolls fell 17,000 in January, the Labor Department said Friday, the first drop since August 2003, when payrolls slid 42,000.” Super Bowl or not, those workers thinking about blowing off Monday might want to think twice about the message they could be sending to employers who may be managing to tighter workforce budgets.
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