The Society for Human Resource Management reports that CCH Inc., a provider of HR and employment law information and services, has released its 2006 Unscheduled Absence Survey.  The rate of unscheduled absences rose to 2.5 percent in 2006, the highest it has been since 1999.  Unscheduled absences cost some large employers an estimated $850,000 annually in direct payroll.

Most interesting to me is CCH's concept of presenteeism.  According to the study, 56 percent of the 326 human resource executives surveyed said presenteeism – or reporting to work when ill and unable to work at full capacity - is up from 48 percent in 2005 and 39 percent in 2004.  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why this is.  Most employees have a strictly allotted number of paid sick days, which they use for everything from caring for sick children to staying home to wait for the cable guy who insists on coming between the massively inconvenient hours of 9-3.  When they do get sick, employees don’t want to be penalized for taking an additional day off, so they show up anyway.

Then, there’s the issue of the out-of-control American work ethic.  Far too many people feel that they’re indispensable at their jobs, and that all hell will break loose if they miss a meeting or log off e-mail for ten minutes during the work day.  At the height of my corporate angst, I felt that taking a sick day and allowing myself to get behind on my never-ending to-do list entailed far more stress than just popping some Tylenol and conducting business as usual.  I imagine that many of you currently feel the same way.  Unfortunately, presenteeism often leads to more absenteeism, because people working in closed office environments spread germs like there’s no tomorrow.

What do you do about your job when you’re actually sick?  Do you stay home but try to cram in a full day of work via laptop and cell?  Do you go to the office and hope that your colleagues don’t glare at you every time you threaten to hack up a lung?  Or do you rest and take it easy, and give your body the much-needed opportunity to recover?