More office workers call in sick on August 24 than any other day

financialpost.com:

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.

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.