Aug. 19, 2022 "Only fools work in August, so why is everyone still working this year?": Today I found this article by Pilita Clark on the Financial Post:
Instead of going on a hike with friends in the summer sunshine last Sunday, I sat inside and grumpily wrote an article that had to be finished by Monday. Annoyingly, the only person I could blame for this was me.
I could have done the work earlier if I had not had a gossipy lunch with a former boss, or rooftop drinks with people from work, or a three-hour fight with the FT’s violently user-unfriendly expenses system.
All these things were done deliberately as part of my plan to WTA, or Work Through August, a month when you can get on with loads of paperwork and catch-ups without distraction.
Or so I thought. Two weeks into the program, I am having a rethink and as things stand I am coming to the view that only idiots work in August.
Part of the problem is that in the Northern Hemisphere this year, a lot of other people seem to be on the same WTA plan.
Maybe they are keen to make up for lost business and get back into the swing of things as the pandemic eases and the risk of recession looms.
Perhaps they want to avoid the worst of the travel chaos gripping airports around the world. It is possible that, like me, they have personal reasons for taking leave in July or September, when in any case air fares are cheaper and beaches emptier.
Either way, my expectations have been shaken, starting with the vision of cycling to work through quiet London streets and gliding straight to the best bike parking spot at my office before finding a last-minute table at a summer-emptied eatery. It turns out that neither the streets nor my favourite restaurants are empty, and the office bike racks are still rammed.
When I get to my desk I am not surrounded by a sea of empty seats but by companionable colleagues who, unfortunately for them, I am prone to distract. This distraction takes time that might otherwise be spent doing things like finishing articles due in on a Monday.
The result is unsettling. Not long after working on that sunny Sunday, I overheard a colleague telling someone on the phone, “I’m here till the middle of August and then I’m away on leave.” This made me jealous, even though I had just had two perfectly good weeks off in July.
At first I thought I was the only one with an unexpectedly active office. But others in the city have the same problem. One friend who had his hopes of a quietly productive August dashed by office busyness blames the rise of hybrid working.
Now that remote working is more acceptable, he thinks people are clocking on in August while also being at the coast with their families.
Elsewhere, I have heard familiar gripes that remind me how good it was to take all my summer holidays in August last year.
First, there are the losers in the race for summer leave who must fill in for absent poolside colleagues, on top of normal workloads. This should be good news for young strivers or anyone keen to make their mark. The trouble is, a lot of striving — and excellent work — goes unnoticed when one’s boss is doing what bosses tend to do in August: lie on the beach.
Even more unfairly, the same managers often come roaring back in September, fizzing with ideas. The sight of an empty desk irks them, even if it has been vacated by an exhausted August toiler finally freed from holding the summer fort. In fact, I know of August workers who wait until October to take a holiday, only to have a clueless manager bark: “What? You’re going on holiday again?”
All up, it strikes me that the world would be more civilized if there were wider recognition of summer serfdom.
I recently came across a law in Iceland that entitles workers to extend their holidays by 25 per cent if their employer requires them to work through the official summer period.
When I asked the relevant government department in Reykjavik whether there were any signs that this idea was catching on in other countries, a helpful person said they were not aware that it was.
It seems a stretch to imagine much enthusiasm for the move in these economically uncertain times. So, it is probably best to gird oneself, embrace the inevitable and make very sure that next August, you are nowhere to be seen.
© 2022 The Financial Times Ltd
Only fools work in August, so why is everyone still working this year? | Financial Post
Aug. 23, 2023 "More office workers call in sick on August 24 than any other day": Today I found this article by Mia Gindis on the Financial Post:
Perhaps it’s the inexplicable craving for a day off ahead of the big Labour Day holiday.
Perhaps it really is a stomach bug, or that more recent fiend — the coronavirus. And of course, it might just be the blues at the end of summer.
Whatever the reason, Aug. 24 is when American workers most often tell their bosses they simply cannot work that day.
The other day workers typically fail to show up?
Feb. 13, usually around the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day. Tough to guess why.
Article content
These dates came from a study by Flamingo, a firm which helps companies manage employee absences and medical leaves, which analyzed data on sick days taken by American workers over the past five years.
People cited stomach bugs more than half the time as the reason for calling in ill, with the majority of sick-day requests mentioning symptoms such as vomiting or diarrhea.
These issues surpassed coronavirus, which accounted for about a quarter of total absences. Injuries like broken bones and muscles strains, which caused six per cent of people to stay home from the office, were also cited.
Beyond physical ailments, Paaras Parker, chief human resources officer at payroll software company Paycor, said her organization observed a notable uptick in workers staying home with anxiety or stress-related conditions, which accounted for almost nine per cent of sick leaves in the Flamingo survey.
“It’s not necessarily that they have strep or a fever, but that they need a day for themselves,” she said.
With employee burnout reaching a post-pandemic high earlier this year, workers feeling emboldened to take mental-health sick days is a “welcome change” in workplace attitudes, Parker said.
The advent of remote work is also changing the culture around sick leave. A new survey by WFH Research shows that workers feeling ill but without an option to work remotely are nearly twice as likely to come to the office with symptoms as their hybrid counterparts.
That spells trouble on the health front as return-to-office mandates harden and office densities increase, contributing to a rise in breeding grounds for contagious illnesses such as influenza and the common cold.
“People clearly feel more comfortable working from home when they’re coughing or when their nose is very stuffy,” said Jeff Levin-Scherz, population health leader at insurance company WTW, formerly Willis Towers Watson.
“If they feel well enough to work, they can feel more comfortable knowing they’re not going to pass anything to anybody else.”
But for employees that are still tied to the office, he stresses the importance of continuing good hygiene such as handwashing and insisting their companies consistently check air quality, practices that became routine during the pandemic.
“These days, where many knowledge workers just don’t come to the office, some of these efforts to make healthier workplaces might actually be amenities that help encourage people to show up,” Levin-Scherz said.
He adds that perks like
access to healthy food
and exercise facilities
could serve a dual purpose of
boosting employee health
as well as office attendance.
In any event, it’s never a good practice to poke holes in an employees’ reason for claiming a sick day, Parker said.
“I don’t think it’s our place to guess why somebody is taking time off, but to realize that human beings need time off and to create environments and policies that allow them to exercise this right when need be,” she said.
https://financialpost.com/fp-work/office-workers-call-in-sick-august-24
No comments:
Post a Comment