Sick things and illness

Tis a pity the CBI has chosen to attack the public sector over sickness rates. One wonders why? Motives are almost always as interesting as the substance of what people/organisations actually say. Let's, for the moment, give them the benefit of the doubt and take at face value their interest in the health and well-being of the public sector. 

Strange then that they failed to mention that the research on sickness rates in both the public and private sector are much the same when you get to organisations above 1,000 employees. The reason appears to be that when one is a member of a big organisation then, should the dreaded "duvet moment" occur then one is more likely to think that someone else will pick up the problem. Not so in small organisations. When we think that our colleagues - that small band of people with whom we work - are going to be under the cosh, then we are much less likely to throw a sickie. 

Absence management is guilt management, in a sense. 

Of course, the majority of the private sector comprise SMEs and the majority of them are relatively small. There is a danger that the CBI is comparing lorries and elephants - they both look the same from a distance - but that's where it ends. 

It won't escape anyone's notice that profit drives the private sector. Absence equals money, they will argue. If people had the same motivation, they would say (I would suspect) then they would attend. But private sector staff no more benefit from the potential profit than they do in the public sector. Few employees are on a profit share scheme. But when the cold wind of economic change blows, it's not motivation that gets them to work - it's fear. It gets staff through the door but doesn't necessarily make for a happy workforce. Happiness is in short supply enough these days without taking away the mirth that remains. Surely the CBI is not advocating fear as a motivator. 

Fear and guilt may be great motivators to get people through the door (they work pretty well for society in general) but applying them systematically would be perverse. When people are ill - particularly with contagious illnesses - the last thing you want is for them to be coughing and sneezing all over people. Surely, we want them to exercise good judgement, to recognise that there is no merit in spreading their bugs to their colleagues and to stay home in bed. 

The trouble with fear and guilt is that they together can make us do things that really ought to be against our better judgement. That's probably the sickest thing of all.