The survey found that 52 percent of workers have a program that allows them to use their time off however they like, but of those, 27 percent still feel they need to make up a reason for not coming in.
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But then there’s the far more interesting reasons a few employees gave, including “my grandmother poisoned me with ham”, “I’m stuck under the bed”, “I broke my arm reaching to grab a falling sandwich”, “the universe said I need a day off”, “I poked myself in the eye while combing my hair”, and “my cat is stuck inside the dashboard of my vehicle”. It seems there is a growing number of people calling in sick – when they aren’t ill.
Employee’s wife found out he was cheating. If you are, lying about being sick while Facebooking could land you in hot water more than ever before.
A CareerBuilder survey of workers and managers has harvested a few of the most absurd stories workers have concocted.
Let’s be honest: Everyone has called in sick to work when he wasn’t really ill.
Conversely, 54 percent of the workers surveyed say they’ve gone in to work even when they really were sick because they thought the work wouldn’t get done.
Normally, the fraudulently feverish crowd would get away with the lie, but as more and more people share their experiences on social media they are making their lies widely known, the annual survey from CareerBuilder found.
Harris Poll included a representative sample of 3,321 full-time workers, 2,326 hiring managers and human resource managers across various industries and company sizes.
One worker was going to the beach because her doctor said she needed more vitamin D. And 48 percent said they can’t afford to miss a day of pay, up from 38 percent previous year. A third of employers admit to checking that a staff member is genuinely sick – whether by asking to see a doctor’s note, calling the sick staff member or, for a third of bosses, checking up on someone’s social media posts.
To keep an eye on questionable behavior, employers are going online.
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While most employers claim to trust their employees, one in three employers (33 percent) have checked to see if an employee was telling the truth after calling in sick this year, compared to 31 percent last year.
