Ask HN: How to implement a stricter “stay at home while sick” office policy?

My company's official policy is already that people should stay home if they're sick. It doesn't work though. Even with a very liberal WFH policy, people just don't want to suffer the setback in productivity that staying home entails.

I've had a similar experience in virtually every office I've worked in.

Is there some good way of making this process more rigorous? Do you work for a company that does it well? Is it a matter of integrating this policy more strongly into the company culture through enforcement?

Or does no company do this well and we're all doomed to being subject to regular and unavoidable sickness?

If you're sick, and don't want to get others sick, that's one thing. Your productivity shouldn't slip in that case. If you're bed ridden with the flu, then you're not going to be working and likewise, you really shouldn't be working.

At many of the offices I've worked at, if you're a developer, you have one or two people you know who know what you're working on and are capable (and expected) to take your work and push it forward in the case you are too sick to work. It's like a partner system that assures that no lapses in productivity will happen.

If you break the work up for one person, between two other developers, it's worked well to make sure the work gets covered, without interruption. At my current gig, it's kind of an unwritten rule if you get sick and your partners cover for you, a free lunch or 12 pack of some quality micro-brew should be forthcoming.

I've been here for several years and it hasn't been an issue yet.

It sounds like working from home while sick is less productive than going into the office and working while sick, am I hearing that correct? If so, that’s the issue you have to tackle.

The psychology is more nuanced. It is not uncommon for people to go to work to get away from home. Not everyone. Not all the time. But it happens. The problem isn't that people aren't working from home while ill. The problem is that people work at work when they are ill.

Paying for a hotel room would allow people to work away from home and away from work. It solves both sides of the equation when someone would prefer not to work from home.

As a long time remote employee, this absolutely needs to be addressed as a company or at least team in order to work. I've been on a lot of teams. Some have constant one off meetings, whiteboard sessions, and lot of general back channel conversations. Those are not fun to work on, and you constantly feel behind, missing out, and frankly, forgotten. This itself makes me feel less productive, or perhaps be less productive, since nobody is paying attention anyways.

Others design collaboration in a way that doesn't necessarily hinder folks, while being more conducive to working anywhere. All conversations via slack/hangouts, screen sharing instead of whiteboarding, document everything in some type of wiki, etc. Those make my life much easier. The expectation of constant involvement alone makes it harder to 'procrastinate.'

I won't say one is better than the other overall, but if a company is to succeed in having employees work remotely, it needs to lean towards the latter.