Employees Get Creative with “Sick Day” Excuses
Next to actually being sick, the most common reasons employees call in sick are because they just do not feel like going to work (34%) or because they felt like they needed to relax (29%). Others take the day off so they can make it to a doctor’s appointment (22%), catch up on sleep (16%) or run errands (15%).
Some of the more creative explanations for employee absences reported by employers are:
- Sobriety tool wouldn’t allow the car to start;
- Forgot he had been hired for the job;
- Dog was having a nervous breakdown;
- Dead grandmother was being exhumed for a police investigation;
- Toe was stuck in a faucet;
- Bitten by a bird;
- Upset after watching “The Hunger Games”;
- Got sick from reading too much;
- Suffering from a broken heart; and
- Hair turned orange from dying it at home.
The survey also found sick days also become more frequent around the winter holidays, with nearly one-third (31%) of employers reporting more employees call in sick more often during this time. December is the most popular month to call in sick; 20% of employers said their employees call in the most during this month. July is the next most popular month to skip work, followed by January and February.
Twenty-nine percent of employers have checked up on an employee to verify that the illness is legitimate, usually by requiring a doctor’s note or calling the employee later in the day. Some employers have had other employees call a suspected faker (18%) or have driven by the employee’s home (14%). Seventeen percent have fired employees for giving a fake excuse.
The survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,494 U.S. hiring managers and human resource professionals and 3,976 U.S. workers (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) ages 18 and older between August 13 and September 6, 2012.