Calling In Sick? You Probably Have This

Workers all across New York have had to make the dreaded “I’m sick” call to their boss at one time or another. 

Hey, it happens. We’ve woken up with a bad cold that makes us feel like death, or ate a bad bite of sushi the night before and paid for it the next day. Maybe you were feeling burned out, and just needed a day off to check in with your mental health.

It’s okay! It’s important to realize that going into work when you’re feeling under the weather is a bad idea. You don’t want to be spreading germs to your co-workers just because you feel guilty or have a lot on your to-do list. 

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What Are The Sick Leave Laws In New York State?

In the US, federal law actually doesn’t require employers to provide paid sick leave to its workers. The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows employees to miss work for several months if they meet certain qualifications, but it still doesn’t cover regular sick time off. 

However, several states have their own laws in place, including here in New York State. In New York, employers that own a business with 5 or more employees and an income of $1 million or more are required to provide paid sick leave for all of their employees; up to 1 hour for every 30 hours that they’ve worked. 

The Most Common Reasons To Call In Sick

The employee leave tracking app Flamingo recently analyzed 5 years of sick leave data from companies across the US to discover the most popular reasons that people miss work. 

According to their findings, these are the top excuses that workers give when they call in sick:

• Stomach bug (54%)
• COVID-19 (25%)
• Anxiety or Stress (9%)
• Injuries (6%)
• Other (6%)

Now it’s time to suck it up and make that awkward phone call to your boss, right?

Not so fast!

This Is How Most Employees “Call In” Sick

No need to practice your “ugh, I don’t feel good” voice anymore! It turns out that when employees “call in” to work, most of them aren’t even calling at all.

Flamingo found that a whopping 54% of people will text their boss to notify them they’ll be out sick, or use an app like Slack or Whatsapp. Only 33% of workers will do it the old-fashioned way and give their employer a call, and 12% prefer to send notice through an email. 

Both of those are still better than the 2% of employees who “no call no show” their jobs and just don’t give any notice at all. Yikes.

But funny enough, New York State workers are more likely to be out sick on certain days more than others.

When Are People Most Likely To Take Sick Leave?

For reasons unbeknownst to us, August 24th is the day Americans are most likely to call in sick.  Who knows why, considering the summer isn’t exactly known as a season to catch something. Maybe people are just faking it to enjoy the nice weather and sunshine?

Hilariously, the second “sickest” day of the year is February 13th, which this year was “coincidentally” the Monday after the Superbowl. Hmmmm.

Well, a lot of employers in New York State should be prepared regardless. For a lot of New Yorkers, if things go our way this year, no one’s showing up to work the day after the Superbowl anyway. We suggest just giving us the day off ahead of time, and we’ll be ready to get back to the grind on Tuesday.