“Vacation is what you take when you can’t take what you’ve been taking any longer.”
Unknown
Have you ever gone to work when you were feeling less than 100 percent? Well, we have a new name for that–it is called “presenteeism” and is defined as showing up and not being at your peak ability to perform your job due to physical, emotional or cognitive challenges.
Have you ever not gone to work when you were feeling 100 percent? There is an old word for that–it is called “playing hooky” (“Hooky, also spelled “hookey”apparently developed from the phrase “hooky-crooky” common in the early 19th century, which meant “dishonest or underhanded”).
Employers have been rather clueless about the magnitude of their absenteeism problems although they realize whether someone is at work feeling “under the weather” or staying at home neither are adding much to the “corporate bottom line.”
The firm CCH in their 2007 Unscheduled Absence Survey discovered that only 34% of employees who call in sick do so because of true physical health problems. The other 66% are most likely dealing with child care, eldercare, or other family problems that require us to skip out of work for all or part of the day.
Unscheduled absenteeism has climbed to its highest level since 1999 and these absences cost some large employers more than $1 million a year, according to the CCH survey of 323 human-resources executives conducted last year. The survey found that unscheduled absenteeism cost employers $660 per employee per year on average last year, up from $610 the prior year.
What employers do know is that individuals who don’t practice healthy lifestyle behaviors are more likely to be a greater cost liability. For example:
- According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smokers cost the American business nearly $94 billion annually in lost productivity
- Overweight employees are absent, on average, 13 days more than healthy weight workers
- The National Business Group on Health reports that obese people have 30% to 50% more chronic medical problems than those who smoke or drink heavily
So employers today readily acknowledge that workers with lousy health habits are more likely to be out of the office. What they don’t seem to know is how many employees actually take a day off without really being physically ill.
To fight back, companies are now doing everything they can to make sure that you don’t play hooky. In a recent Marsh/Mercer Health and Benefits Survey, 20% of companies are limiting the actual number of days you can take for ACCEPTABLE absences; 39% are experimenting with paid-time off “banks” for employees to use when they need to; and 56% are now tracking unscheduled absences and using them in some capacity in an employee’s overall performance appraisal.
If you work at Wal-Mart, you now have to call a 1-800 phone number the day you want to play hooky or are legitimately sick instead of notifying their manager directly. Hopefully, Wal-Mart isn’t paying for each 1-800 call that comes in each day.
Using the most recently available data, the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) has determined that the average Canadian, Australian, Japanese or Mexican worker works roughly 100 hours less than the average employee in the US does in a year (about 2.5 weeks less). Brazilians and British employees worked some 250 hours, or more than 5 weeks less than Americans. Germans worked roughly 500 hours, or 12.5 weeks less than their US counterparts.
All of us deserve a day to play “hooky” to energize our “battery” and step off the “big wheel of life” before we get flung off it….When is the last time you really played guilt-free “hooky” and went to bed with a great big smile on your face knowing you were able to spend one day doing some things that really excite your passions? Um-mm, me either….Be well…
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