I had the privilege of participating in a news conference this afternoon in support of the paid sick days legislation pending before the Connecticut legislature. Support for paid sick days has blossomed in recent days.
Sunday, the Courant ran an Op Ed by West Hartford doctor Laurel Baldwin Ragaven, “Staying Home Isn’t Always an Option” making the case that paid sick days would bring our laws up to speed with common-sense public health practices.
Yesterday in the New Haven Register, HR consultant Scott MacDonald explained how paid sick days is a time saver.
And WFSB was one of three stations covering a press conference highlighting the danger to the healthy and safety of our kids when school bus drivers lack paid sick days.
As I pointed out at the press, recent research has confirmed that repeatedly working when ill boosts risk of long term sick leave:
Sick at work — a risk factor for long term sickness absence at a later date?
Repeatedly going to work when ill significantly boosts the chances of having to take long term sick leave later on, reveals research published ahead of print in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Going to work when ill is an increasingly recognized phenomenon known as “sickness presence,” but relatively little is known about the long term impact of this behaviour.
The researchers randomly selected almost 12,000 Danes of working age, who had been in continuous employment for at least a year, to answer questions on their attitudes to work, preparedness to take time off when ill, and general health.
They were asked how many times in the preceding year they had gone to work ill when it would have been reasonable to have stayed at home.
Workers who had done this at least half a dozen times were 53% more likely to end up going off sick for two weeks, and 74% more likely to take more than two months of sick leave, compared with those who did not come to work when ill.
These findings held true even after taking account of known risk factors for long term sick leave, previous bouts of lengthy sickness absence, and prevailing health.
Short periods off sick may allow workers to cope better with the stresses of a demanding job, and, overall, the evidence is that employment is good for health, say the authors. But long term sick leave is associated with difficulties finding work, they warn.
Here, in essence, is what I had to say at the press conference:
My name is Jonathan Kantrowitz. I am the founder and CEO of Queue. Inc. Queue has been in business since 1980. We are a small educational publisher located in Shelton, CT. We have 18 “full-time” employees who work 30 hours or more a week. These employees receive full medical benefits and 5 sick days every six months. We also have 8 part-time employees. Those who work 20 hours or more a week receive pro-rated sick days.
We provide paid sick days not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is good for our business.
First, providing sick days helps us attract and keep the best employees, and engenders in them a sense of loyalty and respect for the company, since they feel the company cares about them.
Second, providing paid sick days obviously discourages employees from coming to work sick. This has many benefits for our business. It reduces the likelihood that a sick employee will infect other employees, and it helps a sick employee recover more quickly so they can return to work. I also believe that sick employees are more likely to have accidents and some of our equipment has the potential to cause serious injury. Finally, sick employees are more likely to make mistakes, and in our business mistakes are extremely costly. Editorial, printing, and production mistakes hurt the reputation of our business and have caused us to reprint hundreds, and sometimes thousands of books. Even simple shipping and billing mistakes cause problems for our reputation and other internal issues.
For our business providing sick days is a reasonable cost that is outweighed by the benefit of retaining good and happy employees and reducing workplace errors that have potentially far greater costs.
