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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)

#111

Post by maccard »

logfromblammo wrote: post #91
zebraflask wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fits with my experience. My department has some cubicle farms and some shared but much more private office suites. The cube farm people are always getting sick. Somebody comes in with a cough and promptly spreads it. It then can take weeks before there's a week without somebody sick. Getting people to stay home when they are sick has been harder to implement than you'd think. I've tried with my work team. A numb…

Ever since companies ditched vacation and sick leave in favor of combined PTO, I work while sick. When I had sick leave, I used it. It may well be that they don't want to cut their July vacation short by a day because they caught a cold in January. And to compound the issue, it was probably a cold they caught at work, because the company leave policy reinforces the behavior. People who stay home when sick are punishe…

That's not the case everywhere. My sick days aren't bundled into my PTO, and it's still a problem getting people to stay home when they're sick.

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

#112

Post by ghaff »

rbadaro wrote: post #109
logfromblammo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since companies ditched vacation and sick leave in favor of combined PTO, I work while sick. When I had sick leave, I used it. It may well be that they don't want to cut their July vacation short by a day because they caught a cold in January. And to compound the issue, it was probably a cold they caught at work, because the company leave policy reinforces the behavior. People who stay home when sick are punishe…

That is very US specific. In Europe, in a lot of office-based work if you get sick you take some days off and it doesn't impact your normal yearly 20-30 day vacation allowance. If you need more than X days (in my case 5), you need a paper from your doctor, otherwise you self declare as sick. At my workplace, people tend to work from home if they are just feeling a bit sick.

It's mostly a fairly recent trend even in the US. For most of my career, I had separate vacation and sick days (as well as, possibly, personal/floating holidays). I'm not sure when the shift occurred but apparently a combined pool is pretty much the norm these days.

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

#113

Post by eggie »

louprado wrote: post #97
debaserab2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter PSA: Did you know that your body is sneezing for a reason and taking all the air out of it may be counter productive and actually lead to more sneezing?

Unless I inhaled pepper that never happens. I've watched others learn this technique too even large men. It can take years of practice though, just like learning any good habit/manner.

I think the question is if you've considered that not sneezing completely may encourage a situation where you sneeze more often. If the sneezing is actually a helpful thing, it might be a problem to inhibit it.

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

#114

Post by maccard »

damontal wrote: post #72
maxxxxx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"An open-office plan encourages collaboration" They always say that but from my observation this is simply not true.

2nd day in our new open office and I'm trying to work while 2 guys are having a catch with a football over my head.

Do you think if you shared a 3 person office with those 2 guys that problem would go away?

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

#115

Post by graphitezepp »

tcfunk wrote: post #85
louprado wrote: post #79

PSA of the day: With practice you can learn to delay your sneeze by a second or two. That gives you time exhale all the air from your lungs so the sneeze has minimal power[1]. Tilt your head down too and with further practice you can learn to open your throat in order to minimize air velocity. [1] Source: me, a former obnoxiously loud sneezer that always dismissed it as an unavoidable and comical physiological quirk…

Expecting that people should control their sneezes is a ridiculous cultural norm.

I disagree, vehemently in fact. It's not a hard thing to do.

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

#116

Post by maxxxxx »

maccard wrote: post #114
damontal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2nd day in our new open office and I'm trying to work while 2 guys are having a catch with a football over my head.

Do you think if you shared a 3 person office with those 2 guys that problem would go away?

I think it would be better. Open layouts encourage antisocial behavior.

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

#117

Post by WorldMaker »

jackhack wrote: post #106
tcfunk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting that people should control their sneezes is a ridiculous cultural norm.

Expecting sick people to not fill a room with hundreds of millions of aerosolized particles when that could be clearly avoided is a result of simple respect for those around you and evidence of manners and good breeding. Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

Arguably it is kindergarten where a lot of Americans learn the wrong lessons. Kindergartens for most of us were the first open plan offices with terrible inhumane absence policies that most of us experienced.

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

#119

Post by whoru007 »

jackhack wrote: post #106
tcfunk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting that people should control their sneezes is a ridiculous cultural norm.

Expecting sick people to not fill a room with hundreds of millions of aerosolized particles when that could be clearly avoided is a result of simple respect for those around you and evidence of manners and good breeding. Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

> Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

A friend/colleague of mine is suffering from Chronic sinusitis and she usually sneezes every morning for around 20-30 times (random number, I know!) over period of few hours. The 'sneezing fit' is 100% of the time non-contagious yet loud and 'full with watery substance', She covers her sneezing most of the time however it is not always possible to react in time.

Also, she's a single working mother raising two well mannered and cute children. Would you expect her to always stay home when she's always 'sick'?

These kindergarten-level cultural learnings you are talking about are societal pressure, we inhale pollutants, pollens and smoke from cigarettes all the time!

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

#120

Post by DanBC »

WorldMaker wrote: post #117
jackhack wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting sick people to not fill a room with hundreds of millions of aerosolized particles when that could be clearly avoided is a result of simple respect for those around you and evidence of manners and good breeding. Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

Arguably it is kindergarten where a lot of Americans learn the wrong lessons. Kindergartens for most of us were the first open plan offices with terrible inhumane absence policies that most of us experienced.

Current childcare policies are causing public health problems by keeping children away when not needed, or requiring courses of not needed antibiotics before the child is allowed back.
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