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Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#51

Post by EvanAnderson »

sjcsjc wrote: post #34

It would be interesting, but perhaps not terribly useful, to see how sickness absence varies between contract and permanent staff. In the past, when contracting, I have dragged myself to work when feeling dreadful.

Dealing with illness and work is something that's important for everybody but I think it's something contractors (or other non-salary workers) need to be especially cognizant of.

I've been contracting for the last 13 years. I've had a few occasions where I feel I "worked through" a period of illness too enthusiastically and ended up making myself feel worse and lengthening the illness. Knowing that you need to bill, and therefore need to work, is tough to balance against stopping work to get better. It's been a tough lesson for me, but I try very hard to slow down or even stop work when I'm sick.

On the last occasion I really tried to "power through" an illness (with a persistent bad cough and even more persistent sore throat) I started thinking about Jim Henson's death. That made me slow down. Nothing is worth that.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#52

Post by overcast »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #47

Let’s not forget that it often makes sense to call in sick just to be able to complete work that requires concentration in a quiet environment.

I never get sick, so my sick time is just personal time for when I don't feel like coming in work. But mainly I just use it for working on my own personal projects. Silent environment at home is amazing compared to a busy office. I wish our open office space, was converted to sound proof cubes.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#54

Post by edw519 »

I call B.S.

1. "associated" means nothing. "Anything" can be "associated" with "anything else". "significantly related" is almost as worthless. Correlation is better than association. Causation is better than correlation. Where's any of that? This is just a hypothesis, not a conclusion.

2. I've been working in corporate offices for 38 years in every possible environment imaginable: private office, war room, open office, basement, hallway, double office, even a closet. One place someone came in and yelled, "Get out of here now! There's mold everywhere!" Sure enough, hazmat had to clean the office.

3. I have NEVER missed a day of work. EVER. Some people say I'm lucky. That's probably a little bit true. But not really. Read on...

4. Here's a list of things that I believe (without any supporting data or government research) have "significantly more impact" on sickness absence that open-plan offices: diet, lifestyle, movement of any kind, drug use, tobacco, alcohol, stress from work, stress from non-work, medical history, genetics, donut consumption.

5. I loathe open offices for many reasons (mainly because those deciding these things have no idea how to achieve, but that's another rant). But cut me a break, blaming open offices for sickness absence is really a reach. Without proper controls, the statistical evidence presented by OP can be caused by many other co-factors. (See #4 above.)

6. Never get health info from the internet.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#55

Post by zolthrowaway »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #48
fizgig wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a big part of it. I currently have 15 PTO days per year, which includes sick leave. If I'm feeling off, I'll ask if I can work from home, which I always get denied (which is odd, since I do after-hours maintenance and on-call incidents remotely). So rather than piss away PTO, I dose up on drugs and drag my ass to the office. If I had dedicated sick leave, I'd just take the day off. But this miserly PT…

What is PTO?

Paid time off

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#56

Post by bretpiatt »

Too many variables to isolate on this study to provide proof that correlation equals causation. Even with the isolating they've tried to do with the 95% CI the range is:

1 Person Office: 1 (They didn't report a range here)

2 Person Office: 1.13-1.98 sick days

3-6 Person Office: 1.08-1.73 sick days (LOWER than 2)

6+ Person Office: 1.30-2.02 sick days

Great item to study further. This isn't scientific proof of anything. As a solo worker you may come in to the office when sick as well since you don't have to worry about getting anyone else sick and so many other variables they didn't control for make this interesting but far from proof.

Direct PDF link to full study: http://www.sjweh.fi/download.php?abstract_id=3167&file_nro=1

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#57

Post by maxxxxx »

fizgig wrote: post #45
kross wrote: post #29

Root cause: bad sickness/time off/work from home policies.

I think this is a big part of it. I currently have 15 PTO days per year, which includes sick leave. If I'm feeling off, I'll ask if I can work from home, which I always get denied (which is odd, since I do after-hours maintenance and on-call incidents remotely). So rather than piss away PTO, I dose up on drugs and drag my ass to the office. If I had dedicated sick leave, I'd just take the day off. But this miserly PT…

I'd say it's time to look for another job. There are better places to work at.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#58

Post by AlanSE »

brightfog wrote: post #41

I don't think it's about open-offices or not: Work environments just don't reflect work anymore. There isn't any rational reason for knowledge workers to go to an office every day. Socializing and building a cult around a company might be the only reasons. But IDK if these are enough to justify an office. There must be another solution we aren't aware of yet.

I don't think you can really undersell the cult-building aspect, in addition to the psychological factors, which are heavily intertwined.

Co-working spaces have actually been rather successful in outsourcing these factors - both the cultism and the necessity for human interaction. Not every company needs its own brand of Kool-aid, especially when the cultural attraction of many tech companies is indistinguishable from the industry as a whole. It may be beneficial to have core values that are shared among a cluster of companies, and reap some advantages of scale that brings with it.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#59

Post by susam »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #48
fizgig wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a big part of it. I currently have 15 PTO days per year, which includes sick leave. If I'm feeling off, I'll ask if I can work from home, which I always get denied (which is odd, since I do after-hours maintenance and on-call incidents remotely). So rather than piss away PTO, I dose up on drugs and drag my ass to the office. If I had dedicated sick leave, I'd just take the day off. But this miserly PT…

What is PTO?

"Personal time off" or "paid time off". It is an informal term that is usually synonymous to a more formal term such as "casual leave" in many companies.

Re: Sickness absence associated with shared and open-plan offices (2011)

#60

Post by [deleted] »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #48
fizgig wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a big part of it. I currently have 15 PTO days per year, which includes sick leave. If I'm feeling off, I'll ask if I can work from home, which I always get denied (which is odd, since I do after-hours maintenance and on-call incidents remotely). So rather than piss away PTO, I dose up on drugs and drag my ass to the office. If I had dedicated sick leave, I'd just take the day off. But this miserly PT…

What is PTO?

[deleted]
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