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

11 points by paulw88 ↗ HN
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?

16 comments

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auslegung
People will stay home if there’s no detriment to doing so, and you say people don’t want to suffer the productivity setbacks. What are those setbacks? If they can be addressed people will almost certainly stay home when sick.
paulw88
Setbacks in terms of productivity due to a loss of productive hours. There's no stigma or political setback in my company. Everyone is entirely sympathetic to anyone staying home for however long.

1. Teams split up projects into tasks.

2. Each team member agrees to do some subset of the tasks.

3. When a team member fall behind on their tasks due to illness, people do cover for them but the project's progress is inevitably slowed.

auslegung
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.
paulw88
Fair enough. It's definitely possible to be equally productive remotely but many people find it challenging. Some frankly admit that they will procrastinate while working from home. Some have small children or roommates that distract them.

But maybe if the company made it a goal to have all employees be "fully remote capable" that could go a long way to prepping them to work productively from home while sick.

axaxs
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.

machello13
> People will stay home if there’s no detriment to doing so

This is not true. I, personally, hate working from home and will come into the office any chance I get. There are people who would prefer to work from home and people who wouldn't, and I'm not sure which group is bigger. I imagine it depends a lot on your personality and your living situation (people with families and a big house might prefer to work from home compared to young single 20-somethings living in a city apartment).

auslegung
Our definitions (or maybe scope) of "detriment" are different because you're saying exactly what I mean. If being at home is bad in any way, that's a detriment to staying home. People's opinions differ on whether the employer should help make the employee's home a better work environment.
at-fates-hands
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.

brudgers
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.

gshdg
If WFH entails a setback in productivity, then your solution has to address making WFH as productive as being in the office.
charwalker
Does your team have set WFH days each week to better that practice and be prepared for sick days that are WFH days?

Is there a policy for sick days and their usage and minimal if any retaliation for regular use? If sick days are part of vaca days or general PTO but make up a small number then I'd say that doesn't count.

duxup
I had a boss that would simply send people home.

For some folks that was what they needed. It was the Midwest and some folks just want to work and would come in by default if they were able to walk.

After a while people started to understand that he really meant "stay home if you are sick", not just if they're borderline on their deathbed.

Lots of places are less tolerant of people staying home so they sometimes need to see what level of "too sick" is "sick" before they stay home on their own.

This, like a lot of things, requires a good relationship to avoid hurt feelings.

diehunde
A person I know was given thousands of dollars to pay for their home office setup. They got a modern desk, chair, giant monitor and pretty good computer. This kind of setup would make working from home much more attractive IMO.
tdeck
To be honest, I don't think people are coming into work to avoid a setback in productivity, I think they're coming in to avoid being perceived as lazy and not dedicated to the work. A typical cold is contagious with symptoms for 7-10 days, I can't imagine how I would be perceived for staying home that long due to a cold, which is considered trivial.
pzxc
An answer I haven't seen yet in this thread: give people actual sick days instead of PTO.

At most companies I've worked at, including my current employer, sick days and vacation days are combined into PTO - Paid Time Off. Who wants to burn a vacation day if you're sick but capable of working?

afarrell
When you say "making this process more rigorous" and "through enforcement", this sounds very much like you're saying that you want to know how to hold people accountable for coming in while sick.

Is that right?

If so, I'm going to have to agree with Jocko Willink on this one: accountability is kinda a crutch. People should be led so that they themselves drive toward this. And in order to lead people, you need to create clarity on:

- Why? -- What is the impact of this thing you want?

- Why not? -- What are the barriers? How shall we tackle them

- What is the coherent overall leadership intent?

If you have some parts of your intent which are in tension, you need to really identify those because the way those you lead try to resolve that tension is probably at the core of the problem.