Talking Business Column
24 October 2012
Bev Crighton, University of Derby Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management.
This 'Talking Business' column by Bev Crighton, University of Derby Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management, also appears in the Business Telegraph section of today's Derby Telegraph:
"One of the few pitfalls of working at a University is 'freshers' flu', a combination of the various ailments our thousands of students bring with them as they start the academic year.
When it hits most people keep turning up for work and try and plough through it. But is that stoic attitude always to be applauded by managers, when one day off might mean the employee recovering much faster and also not passing on their cold or flu to co-workers?
Whatever the pros and cons, a report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) just out says more businesses are seeing employees turning up while unwell. The average number of sick days taken by workers also dropped from 7.7 days in 2011 to 6.8 days this year (2012).
It's called presenteeism; the attitude that in an increasingly tough jobs market people are very wary about being seen to not pull their weight, have work pile up, or let down their boss or team.
In a not unrelated topic, the Chancellor George Osborne has suggested employers could offer a compensatory payment to staff (in the form of shares in the company itself perhaps) in return for their signing away employment rights such as fighting unfair dismissal or receiving a redundancy pay out.
Nobody is saying managers should be taking temperatures and handing out cough sweets but a sensible boss knows that sometimes it would be far better for all if the poor snotty wreck in the corner went home and got themselves better.
I say this as someone who has worked in different and demanding sectors - banking and the newspaper industry included - that ideas on work-life balance have moved on and that we're all the better for it.
I'd rather not go back to the days, when I began my working life, when I had to go to work when ill or I didn't get paid. Or that women working in the banking and finance sector knew that pregnancy meant an almost automatic disqualification from consideration for senior posts, such as Bank Manager.
By all means let's have a sensible review of employment legislation, it needs to move with the times, but whatever we end up with must continue to strike that fine balance between staff welfare and getting on with the job.
Put simply, if you're ill I'd rather you went home, felt better and didn't give me and the rest of my team the same ailment. And if you want shares ownership in your company think twice before signing away some pretty fundamental rights as an employee. Remember, share prices can go up as well as down but your self-worth as a worker is of far more value."
