Personal illness accounts for just over one-third of unscheduled absences. Why? Family issues and caretaking, personal needs, stress, burnout, an “entitlement mentality” and probably a host of other (unreported) reasons.

According to the 2007 17th annual CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey by Harris Interactive:

Most people today are juggling the demands of busy personal and professional lives, and are trying to do their very best in both places. Organisations need to stop the tug of war with people for their time, and become a partner to employees to help them, and the business overall, be more successful.

...The fact that two of the programs that companies rated as most effective – telecommuting and compressed work week – are not also among the most used signals the need for employers to step back and assess if they have the right programs in place for their people,” stressed CCH employment law analyst Pamela Wolf.

Disciplinary action remains the most commonly used method of controlling absence, but others included yearly review, verification of illness, paid leave banks and no fault programs.

Paid leave banks (that provide a bank of hours to be used as the employee wishes, rather than managing separate sick, vacation and personal time) or other forms of paid time off (PTO) programs continue to be the most effective absence control method. U.S. companies on average offered 9 work-life programs – down from 11 in 2006 – and 5 absence control programs – down from 6.

Productivity declines and presenteeism and disengagement increase when employers rely on disciplinary measures.

• 38% of employers reported that presenteeism was a problem in their organizations.


• Nearly 9 out of 10 sick employees who showed up to work were suffering from contagious short-term illnesses.

Employees show up for work when they shouldn’t just as others stay home. Why?

• Too much work/too many deadlines


• No one available to cover


• Desire not to use up vacation time.

However a full half also said they showed up for work sick because they feared being disciplined; organizations with traditional sick-day polices enforced by disciplinary action may make presenteeism worse.

The survey found that the more unhappy employees were and the lower the morale, the more reasons they found not to come to work.

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