Strome Business Minute With Dr. Jeff Tanner

Employees with paid sick leave take an average of 5.2 days off a year. Those without paid sick leave only take 3 days. Either way, about 25 percent of sick days are taken to care for someone else. Sounds like an argument for not paying for sick leave. The problem is that those without sick leave are nearly twice as likely to go to work sick, whether it is with the Corona virus or another illness, which then spreads it at work. According to one study, younger workers are most likely to come to work sick because they can’t afford to miss. And many of them are in high customer contact jobs, in retail and restaurants. Now that Corona virus can shut a business down if one employee infects several other employees, maybe every company should offer paid sick leave. This has been a Strome Business Minute, presented by the Strome College of Business, at Old Dominion University.