Ask the Ethics Guy: Should You Go to Work Sick?
Date: Tuesday, March 04, 2008
By: BRUCE WEINSTEIN, PH.D. -- McClatchy-Tribune News Service, nandotimes.com Original
Should you go to work sick?
No.
Illnesses like the cold and flu can be spread by physical contact. When we're sick, the people with whom we come into physical contact have a significantly increased risk of coming down with the illness, according to virologists, epidemiologists, and other experts. There is a causal relationship between being sick with a cold or the flu and making others sick by touching them directly or handling an object that they soon touch themselves.
In the workplace, this correlation has four important implications, all of which are related to the ethical principle of fairness. First, whether our job consists of providing goods or services, we cannot meet the needs of clients well if we're not feeling well ourselves. It may be a mark of good character that we want to be of service to others even when we're under the weather, but we are simply not being fair to clients if we can't do our jobs adequately, no matter what our intentions are.
Second, by increasing the likelihood that we'll infect co-workers, we are not being fair to fellow employees when we go to work sick. You may feel as though you're letting people down or making work for others if you don't drag yourself into the office, but your colleagues are more likely to be upset if you give them your cold or flu than if you take some time off.
Third, going to work sick is unfair to our employers. According to a report published in the New York Times in 2006, researchers at Cornell University found that ill workers on the job could account for up to 60 percent of corporate health costs. That's a lot of bread, however you slice it.
Finally, our decision to come to work sick is unfair to ourselves. No matter what the policy of your employer may be, when you have a cold or the flu, you deserve time off to get better. This means staying at home, but not to do work. Trying to replicate a day in the office from your sickbed may prevent you from making others sick, but it won't do much to hasten your recovery.
It's not just unfair to others to go to work when we're sick; it's potentially harmful, too. Coming down with a cold is a nuisance, but getting the flu can be deadly, particularly to older people or those with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and asthma. In the United States alone, almost 40,000 people die each year from the flu or flu-related complications.
Ultimately, all of this is a management issue, and prudent, ethical managers will not allow an employee to come to work sick or allow someone with a cold or flu to remain on the job. (This also applies to the manager him or herself.) It is just plain wrong for an employer to terminate or threaten to terminate someone simply because he or she has the misfortune of coming down with a temporary illness. It is also wrong to require or expect a sick employee to work at home. They're called "sick days" for a reason: They're days that should be devoted to convalescing.
STAY HOME. DO GOOD. GET WELL.
The fundamental principles of ethics - doing no harm, making things better, respecting others, being fair, and being loving and kind - means, in part, making smart choices when we feel the onset of a cold or flu. Our company, clients, and co-workers will be grateful for our decision to skip an unproductive, sneeze-filled day at the office. Let's face it: so will we!
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