62% Indian employees report sick to chill out at home

A global survey has found that many employees call in sick from work just to watch television or stay in bed when they are not suffering from any illness, with those in India and China leading the charts.

Employees surveyed in India, Australia, Canada, China, France, Great Britain, Mexico and the US, have all admitted to varying degrees that they have called in sick when they were not actually sick, a survey commissioned by The Workforce Institute at Kronos has revealed.

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China led all other surveyed regions with 71% of employees admitting to pretending to be sick, followed by India with 62%, Australia (58%), Canada (52%), the US (52%), Great Britain (43%) and Mexico (38%).

France had the smallest number with only 16%, the survey said.

Of the surveyed, 44% employees in India said they called in sick because they felt stressed or needed a day off.

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In India and Mexico staying home and watching TV was the top choice followed by meeting up with friends and relatives.

When asked what their employers could do to prevent this practice, most employees around the world felt that the opportunity to work from home and to take unpaid leave could help reduce this practice.

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About 24% workforce in India also felt that providing more paid time off to employees would make a difference.

"The majority of employees in all regions said they were negatively impacted when co-workers called in sick, with the top reason being that they had to take on the work or shift of the missing employee," the report said.

These kind of unscheduled absences, like when an employee calls in sick at the last minute, cost organisations 8.7 per cent of payroll each year, the survey said.