Encouraging Sick Employees to Stay Home

Human resources personnel often find themselves in the unenviable position of asking sick employees to head home and recuperate before coming back to work. Managing employees requires ensuring a healthy and safe environment for all workers, and those who bring communicable diseases into the workplace risk more than their own productivity. An estimated 70 million days of work are lost each year to the flu during its peak season, but it is far more important that workers remain healthy and do not spread their illness to others. Convincing workers to return or stay home from work is one element of managing employees that can prove exceptionally difficult.

Managers specializing in human resources likely understand the OSHA regulations and other standards that require a safe and healthy work environment. While a summer cold or minor case of influenza is unlikely to violate these guidelines, the guiding principles of such laws and regulations lie in the fact that everyone deserves a workplace where risks of exposure to potentially dangerous illnesses are minimized. Workers may balk at the idea of going or staying home with an illness for many different reasons, and those tasked with managing employees should strive to tackle them and leave workers feeling secure in their choices.

Even managers and business owners must take sick days during their careers. Workers should be encouraged to recognize signs of illness and make the right choices without worrying about whether or not they will please their bosses. Many good leaders understand that everyone becomes ill and no one is completely immune to the common cold or influenza. Educating employees about the potential harm of coming to work while sick, including infecting workers with weak immune systems or making them carriers who can then transmit the disease to their children or elderly houseguests, can help cut down on resistance to taking sick leave.

Those tasked with managing employees understand that sick workers are not likely to operate at peak performance. Sick workers may make costly errors due to lapses in judgment from pain or distractions caused by an illness. Most states allow individual companies to determine when an employee is too sick to effectively complete work or a potential health hazard to others in the workplace. At-will employees may be sent home from the office by those managing employees, though laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act or Family Medical and Leave Act may apply in the case of severe illnesses.

Encouraging sick employees to stay home is one of the jobs required when you are managing employees. Educating them about the risks of spreading illnesses and comforting them with the knowledge that everyone needs to take sick days at one time or another can help them make the decision for themselves. Many states allow employers to send at-will employees home due to illness. Keeping your workforce healthy is a major part of the human resources task of managing employees, and doing so can help prevent undesirable errors and lapses in productivity.

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