There is so much hype and media frenzy surrounding the swine flu outbreak http, my favorite being a clueless PR person who was trying to make the case that things like swine flu, bird flu, terrorism and hurricanes “show why every employee should choose to be paid via Direct Deposit.” But in the midst of this hubbub, I’m reminded that there is an incredibly effective, time-tested strategy that can help any workforce deal with the swine flu problem.

It’s so marvelously simple that you may have overlooked it, but it goes like this: Encourage sick workers to stay home when they are sick.

I know that sounds like a joke, but stick with me, because my long experience as a manager has given me a unique insight into the employee mind-set. After decades of supervising people in all sorts of work settings, I am convinced that most workers—particularly the most diligent and hardworking ones—don’t like to call in sick.

Yes, I know there are some people who will stay home if the wind blows the wrong way, but such employees are in the minority, I’ve found. Most of the people in your workforce, if they are anything like those I have worked with, enjoy the job they do and resist staying home even when they are not feeling 100 percent.

As the Chicago Tribune noted in a story today, “As the number of confirmed cases of swine flu grows and concerns mount, corporate America is grappling with how best to keep healthy employees well and at work in slimmed-down workplaces, and how to keep the sick ones home.”

Part of the problem is the trend over the past few years for many organizations to cut down on sick leave. Many smaller businesses, meanwhile,  may have no policy about sick leave at all.

I’m one of those workers who used to come to work sick unless I had something that made me so ill that it put me flat on my back. I can’t tell you how many times I came to the office with bad colds, sore throats and all sorts of other minor maladies.

That’s how I used to be, but it didn’t take me too many years of supervising people before I discovered that people who work when they are sick are far less productive. More important, they infect everyone else. 

As much as it might cause some temporary trouble to have somebody out on sick leave, it’s a minor inconvenience compared to what a sick person at work can do to the rest of your workforce. But as The New York Times blog Domestic Disturbances reported, it’s not that easy a call for many people. “Nearly half of all private sector workers in our country—more than 59 million people—have no paid sick time at all. The problem is particularly acute among women, low-wage workers—more than three-quarters of whom have no paid sick days—and part-timers.”

Smart sick leave policies are essential to any forward-thinking organization, and a business that chooses to ignore the fact that everyone eventually gets sick is being incredibly foolish and shortsighted.

So if you have a sick leave policy, encourage your workers to make good use of it, especially now with the threat of swine flu looming so large in many organizations. And if you are one of those organizations that doesn’t offer a sick-leave benefit, or makes it difficult people to stay home sick, well, you should rethink what you’re doing. Having people feel compelled to work when they are ill is a losing proposition for everyone.

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