IT'S not a sickie, it's a mental health day.   

That's the belief among one third of workers who admit to faking an illness to get the day off work because they feel they are not coping.

Workers with competent bosses they respect are less likely to pull a sickie because of the guilt factor, the Galaxy poll of almost 1300 employees also found.


Almost one out of four workers who categorised their manager as a poor performer admitted to taking days off when they weren't sick purely because they hated their boss. 

But the most common reason for faking illness was attributed to anxiety, with one in three workers citing too much responsibility or feeling burnt out.   

Close behind was family commitment, with 27 per cent admitting to absenteeism as a way of juggling personal responsibilities and emergencies.

Overall, the majority of workers - 63 per cent - admitted to taking a sickie at some point in their lives to get the day off.   

Stephanie Christopher, the national director of the workplace consultancy firm SHL which commissioned the study, said the feeling by a worker they were entitled to a mental health day was closely linked to the relationship they had with their boss.

"Ineffective management affects productivity in lots of different ways, including staff loyalty and motivation," she said.

The finding that workers who feel they have too much responsibility are more likely to take sick days which are not genuine appears to contradict research to date, which has found that workers are more likely to call in sick if they feel powerless.

But Professor Sue Richardson, the principal research fellow with the National Institute of Labour Studies at Flinders University, has found that job status and autonomy play a crucial factor when it comes to workplace anxiety and burn out.

Consequently, there is a higher rate of work-related stress recorded among bus drivers than senior executives, she said, because although both have considerable responsibilities, bus drivers have no control over their timetable or traffic conditions. Frustration turns to anxiety, anxiety leads to burn out.

Just 12 per cent admitted they had pulled a sickie because they had something else they wanted to do. Presumably, most of them live by the sea. An auditor general's report earlier this year found that an employee's proximity to the beach had a direct correlation to the number of sick days they took in a year.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/workers-throw-a-sickie-to-save-their-sanity--unless-they-live-by-the-beach-20111110-1n9iw.html#ixzz1dKjJIfOH

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Nov 11^th, 2011 at 6:47am:


It never ceases to amaze me that people seem to think that such an amazingly generous concept as sick leave is yet another leave tool. It is not your leave at all it is an insurance to make sure that if you are unwell you will not sacrifice financial stability for it. Taking sickies is an abuse of what is a generous privilege that we have in this country. It is so good that we can take them as compassionate leave when our children are ill.

I can never understand those who abuse such generosity by taking their sick leave entitlement when it is due and then complain they have none when they genuinely fall sick.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Nov 11^th, 2011 at 7:00am:


None of our staff have in the time Ive been here.

Not hard to tell you are ex-public service with an attitude like that.  Sick leave is not there for leisure.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Nov 11^th, 2011 at 7:00am:



That in a nutshell explains why you have never attained a status higher in business than what you are now.

During peak times of work, I would do 6am - midnight 7 days per week to achieve a goal set down by Corporate.
I live and breathe my work a lot of the time.

I will also add that these multi-nationals have also rewarded me handsomely as well.
Particularly the American ones.

Ha! I knew that would drag in the usual suspects.

I know I am the only person in Australia to have used up my sick leave before resigning. One of a kind, that's me!

I think the real story is that I'm the only person who's game to admit it.

People might not take so much sick leave if the boss said, "you're looking a bit exhausted and overworked today George, have a long weekend, take Monday off".

You don't hear that as much as you should.

Come on all you business owners, give your workers that put in 110% a day off, it will be worth it, they'll love you for it and work twice as hard when they come back.

Well in my job, and it seems to be fairly uniform across the  board - I think the entitlement is 8 days of sick leave per year, and I haven't heard of any workplace where it is cumulative. IF you got even so much as a cold, that'd take the bulk of your entitlement for the year.  More than likely you're forced to come back before you're completely better, so you pass it on to the next guy, and so overall productivity is harmed by making the sick come to work.

Uncle wrote on Nov 11^th, 2011 at 9:54am:



I won't uncle, I've finished work now, and I only did it to the slave driver companies who wanted you to do three jobs for the price of one, and the government where you have to have time off occasionally, to get over the humdrums.

Quote:



Voluntary.