#BossLady: Amanda Rose says sick leave does not equal logging on or working from home

Since the pandemic people have reported feeling pressured to do something they absolutely shouldn’t by their bosses.

With the nation grappling with staff shortages in part thanks to Covid, the flu and colds, we need to remind ourselves exactly what being sick is and when we should take a genuine sick day.

If you have a sniffle or a bit of a cough, does that mean you’re sick? Or is being sick when you’ve got a migraine?

For me, sick is when you physically need to recover from something and that requires rest.

Therefore, you can’t be working while you try to recover. It’s unrealistic.

WORKING FROM HOME

Since the pandemic, many people have reported feeling pressured to log on at home when they call in sick because they have remote access.

This is not the solution if you are truly unwell. All you are doing is prolonging your recovery. If you are genuinely sick, take a sick day.

If you need to rest to recover from your illness you should be taking a sick day from work and not logging on.

On the other hand, if you are feeling rundown, it could be a good idea to ask your boss if you can work from home to avoid the commute leading to a longer day and allowing yourself time to rest on your lunch hour.

People tend to work when they’re sick for three reasons — they are worried about losing money, they’ve run out of sick days or they don’t want their workload to get out of control.

But by not letting your body rest and recover, you often end up losing more money from lost days and will do a poor job resulting in mistakes or lower productivity.

You would have been better spending eight hours in bed.

Amanda Rose, founder of Small Business Women Australia. Picture: Monique Harmer

WEEKEND CARE

Self-care isn’t limited to workdays, you need to rest at the weekends and make sacrifices in your private life, too. I see a lot of people going flat out at weekends and then coming to work for their recovery.

If you’re exhausted or unwell, cancel the dinner on Saturday night, don’t go to the football, put off anything that doesn’t need doing. Sunday is known as the day of rest, we just need to use it.

Do you have a work query for Amanda? Email [e-mail]

* Amanda Rose is the founder of Small Business Women Australia, and a key mentor and career adviser

Originally published as #BossLady: Amanda Rose says sick leave does not equal logging on or working from home