A few days ago, Fox News reported young American workers (Gen Z, ages 25 to 34 years) are taking advantage of the sick leave benefits offered by their employer at higher levels than that of their peers from other generations.
Do remote workers refrain from taking sick leave ?
The purpose of this article is to find out if remote workers working from home refrain from taking sick leave. To answer this question, a review multiple health care data yields answers that are relevant to workers working from home and remote employers who employ them.
What is employer provided sick leave ? How is it used ?
What is sick leave? Sick leave are paid days off from work to recuperate from personal injury or illness or those of their loved ones. In addition to injury recovery, employees also use sick leave time for doctors visits and health check ups. Preventive Medicine surveyed almost 14,000 adults between the ages of 18 to 64 years with paid sick leave benefits. Regardless of medical condition, race, income, educational levels; respondents reported having used six of eight preventive health check up services in the last year:
- doctor’s visit
- blood pressure
- cholesterol
- fasting blood sugar check
- flu shot
- Pap test
- Mammogram
- tests for colon cancer
Does employer provided sick leave increase doctor’s visits ?
The American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM) in 2021 surveyed peer reviewed research published over a 20 year period. It was determined that the US is the only industrialized nation in the world “with no national policy mandating paid sick leave for its workers.” Additionally, the researchers compared utilization rates of individuals with paid sick leave benefits with the utilization rates of those without the benefit of paid sick leave. Here is the data:
- 1.57 odds of getting the flu vaccination
- 1.54 odds of getting a mammogram
- 1.33 chances of visiting a doctor
- 1.29 chances of getting a Pap smear test
Based upon the data from 12 separate studies, it was concluded that paid sick leave benefits had the effect of increasing the utilization of services for primary and preventive health care.
Where are GenZ workers employed ?
Referencing the study methodology cited by Fox, the data was derived solely from a pool of employees working in the professional services sector. This tiny detail is critical as primary employers of young workers according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) are as follows:
- Leisure and hospitality, 24%
- Wholesale and retail trade, 20.2%
- Education and health services, 17%
Lets take a look at the number of US workers, regardless of age range or generation using the sick leave days offered by their employer. Trinet analyzed mid 2022 to mid 2023 employee benefit data of 80% of US adults who either worked or studied to share:
- Approximately 25% had not taken any sick days
- Of employees taking sick leave, the average was 2 to 3 days used
- About 9% of employees reported taking 11 to 20 days or more
Remote workers working at home are clustered in these sectors
The Fox News data relates to employees working in the professional services sector. Unapologetically, this area holds significant relevance to the remote first employer, remote worker, remote team leader and the work from home community in general. Why? The professional service sector includes many industries where a majority of employees work from a home office.
Mckinsey’s American Opportunity Survey (cited by USA Today) found people employed in these occupational areas worked virtually:
- Mathematical and computer operations, 89%
- Business and finance, 86%
- Architecture and engineering, 82%
- Art, design, entertainment, sports, and media, 80%
- Legal services, 76%
78% to 90% of US employers offer sick leave benefits to their employees
Getting back to the sick leave benefits offered by US employers. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) conducted a benefits survey of 4,200 employers across industries. They found that 95% of the respondents offered sick leave. For a ten year period spanning March 2010 to 2020, a more conservative calculation by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, (BLS) suggests a lower figure of 78%. How much does it cost an employer to provide sick leave to its workforce? BLS estimates, “the average cost to employers was $0.45 per employee hour worked in March 2020.”
How many days? Trinet estimates, on average, American employers provide approximately 8 sick leave days to full-time employees and 6 days sick leave to part time. Non-exempt union workers can get their average sick leave days boosted to ten annually after one year of service. Non-exempt nonunion workers can expect to earn 7 sick days annually after the completion of one year of work.
1/4th of all US workers do not take ANY sick leave time off
When we gather all of the data points from Trinet, BLS and McKinsey, we can draw these rough conclusions:.
- One quarter of US workers refrain from taking ANY sick days
- When taken, 1/5th of the sick day benefits available are left on the table
- Just 1/10th of employees represent habitual, chronic users of full-range employer provided sick leave benefits
A majority of remote workers work from home feel pressured to work when sick
Perhaps American workers are working harder than ever before? Committing more of their personal and family time to their employer and refraining from using the sick leave and/or paid time off employee benefit for fear of job loss. Or lower status, loss of face or implied loss of competitiveness. No longer the lion or lioness? Maybe its time for the young adult cubs to pounce. These feelings are not specific to staff reporting to a traditional office workspace.
BBC cited study results from Beamery showing:
- 65% US remote workers working at home felt pressured to work while sick
- 39% US work from home staff will trudge through sickness and work while experiencing sickness
- 26% US telecommuters believe sick days are a relics of times past
The 5 dangers of encouraging staff WFH to work through sickness at home
As remote first, distributed location and hybrid employers, why would you care about sick leave work utilization rates? The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, here and the Journal of Organizational Behavior reported these dangers of encouraging or turning a blind eye away from employees who work at home while impaired:
- lowers work performance
- increases the likelihood of exhibiting work burnout in the future
- increases the chances of becoming depressed
- increases feelings of more guilt than had they rested at home while sick
- lowers future health condition
Why are these sentiments of work at home employees key for employers and human resource managers? Merely offering a sick leave benefit may not be enough to ensure employee wellness and therefore employee productivity. One would hypothesize employer benefit offerings and employee usage would be equal, all other factors considered. Further, one could also deduce that the increased use of the preventive care medical system by employed American workers with paid sick leave would thwart the potential progression of disease. Thereby lowering the cost of the American health care systemwide.
8 Tips employers can use to encourage sick leave usage
Neither of the two assumptions alone, while expected, match reality. We shall cover the methods by which employers could realize fully realize the positive benefits of offering paid sick time off now.
- Communicate taking time off when sick is a non-negotiable expectation and duty to others
- Stress the vital need to be 100% present when working to ensure high quality output
- Explain the importance of maintaining physical health and mental well-being
- ‘Lead by doing’ demonstrating senior officers and managers using sick leave for recuperation
- Reinforce usage of daily break times during the workday
- Introduce themes of the month where employees are encouraged to share techniques they use to maintain their health and vitality
- Refrain, whenever possible of encouraging the 24/7 extended workday where employees are pressed to be available off-hours or on non-workdays
- Establish buddy, peer partners, mentor and protégé programs where colleagues are encouraged to check-in on one another (virtually and/or in person)
As remote first and hybrid employers do their part by (1) offering a sick leave benefit and (2) encourage utilization, in order to help their members of their personnel pool thrive, from a macroeconomic perspective, a healthy workforce isn’t guaranteed.
Employer sick leave offering and employee usage: from a macroeconomic perspective
Individual workers look to these realities.
Heath care cost comparisons by nation states indicate that among industrialized nations, America offers the only medical system that uses revenue collected from taxpayers, involves private insurance and subsidies of private organization to finance the health care of its citizens and inhabitants.
Even though, we haven’t fully adopted universal healthcare coverage, it is interesting to know Axene Health Partners reports that only 9% “of all Americans and 12.4% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 64 do not have health insurance.” Often, the way in which it is reported in major media outlets, to advance certain perspectives funded by lobbyists, most Americans lack healthcare coverage. Which is untrue.
Americans spend 40% more for health with worse outcomes than other nations
Perhaps this argument is to dissuade people from investigating the challenge that really needs to be addressed. The World Population Review, calculated Americans spend 40% more for health care than their peers living in other industrialized countries. And, our health outcomes are no better. The Commonwealth Fund estimates “the U.S. spends nearly 18% of GDP [gross domestic product] on health care, yet Americans die younger and are less healthy than residents of other high income countries.”
Here’s a brief summary of the per capita costs by country in 2022:
- US, $12,555
- Switzerland, $8,049
- Germany, $8,011
- Norway, $7,898
- Netherlands, $7,358
- Austria, $7,275
In looking at the data for logical explanations of the significant difference between US health care costs and its industrialized counterparts and competitors, we’re told higher drug costs and administrative fees are to blame.
Employer sick leave offering and employee utilization: from a microeconomic perspective
Looking at sick leave from a microeconomic perspective, it may be why Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s efforts to improve the overall health of Americans has gained steam and captured the hearts of many Americans.
From a microeconomic view, we now tackle the second assumption that higher utilization rates of healthcare benefits in the U.S. should lead to improved health outcomes, while clearly they do not.
This is probably one of the major reasons why remote job opportunities featuring flexibility, hybrid and work at home features are in great demand. Employees are taking their physical and mental health into their own hands, while also working. They don’t rely upon the federal, state or local government to mandate participation in a healthcare program that doesn’t work as it should. They are accustomed to working for employers who offer health benefits with the expectation that they will not be used.
What does this mean? It can be interpreted to mean that telecommuters value remote work because they reap the intrinsic lifelong benefit of high quality lifestyle. To the extent that the advantages far exceeds those when reporting to a traditional office workspace. In spite of the estimated 8% to 25% reduction in monetary salary be dammed.
