Passenger/Employee Safety

Missing work and missing school

The federal agency said Friday that about 1.5 million workers aged 15 to 69, or 9 per cent of the work force, reported taking time off work because of the HINI or seasonal flu.*

Seasonal flus impact quality of life, the economy and the cost of doing business. Employees absent because of seasonal flus or other viruses increase pressure on others to fill in while they recover. In some cases the resulting cost to business is simply “overtime” expenses.

"The most common way to get a cold
or the flu is by touching something
contaminated by someone infected,"
Smith says. "It's not someone sneezing or
coughing in your face. It's them
contaminating a phone.” **

Most people do get paid time off. Some 57 per cent of all private businesses offer paid sick leave, according to a 2007 report from the Department of Labor. Still, there's a natural worry that if you don't go in, the work won't get done, or it will pile up so high you'll never be able to get through it all. That's especially true these days, when it seems everyone is doing more work with less resources." People don't want to stay home and add to their co-workers' workloads just because they've got the sniffles," says Michael Smith, a physician who is chief medical editor for WebMD.com. "In the end it hurts more then it helps."

Source:* Toronto Globe and Mail January 2010, **WebMD.com