It may be hard to believe right now, but August is nearly over. With the end of August comes the earliest stirrings of fall, and that means that cold and flu season isn't far behind. While for many businesses that means sick time and the desperate rush to cover folks lost to illness, there may be another option: putting conference calls to work.
It's a phenomenon that's well known; many have seen it, some have even done it, and here the phenomenon is known as “working sick.” For those who don't get sick time off, or just feel a little off their game, the option to sit out work isn't always there. Indeed, some kinds of seasonal allergies or mild sinus issues often make someone look much worse than said person actually is, so the person in question often doesn't think much of going in to work even as that person looks like a potential source of disruption-causing illness. Thus, it's not uncommon to see workers sneezing, coughing or worse at desks, and exposing the rest of the office to colds and potentially worse. But with the rise of the mobile workforce—and conference calling is a major portion of what drives such an operation—it is now entirely possible to be working sick, yet not bring that illness into the office itself.
With current communications services, like those offered by AT Conferencing, it's now easier than ever before to simply set up a small communications suite and still be active at work even when not physically present. The current state of conference calling allows for a reservationless system, offering phone conferencing on demand, as needed, from several different devices so that meetings and collaborative effort can carry on unimpeded even when not everyone is actually in the office.
Even these services aren't always enough to make for a day at work; some breeds of illness like the flu can completely incapacitate for hours, and others bring along so much coughing that a conference call would be shattered under the weight of the distraction. But with a few minor tweaks—the proper cough drop or syrup, for example—coughing can be held at bay long enough to carry on a conference call and get some work done even when home sick, and any contribution is often better than none at all.
The impact that “working sick” can have on an office is incalculable, mostly owing to the subjective nature of the illness. We all know that working sick impacts performance. So just for planning purposes, consider that sick worker loses 20 percent of total capability, and passes the illness on to two workers that day. The illness spreads, and taken in a cumulative fashion over a period of weeks that could mean huge losses. By opening up the field to more remote work using conference calls, among other tools, there may be some losses from that one employee being mostly out, but the process of handing it off is curtailed. That means a much lower cumulative loss, and improved profitability.
While employee absenteeism due to illness can never really be stopped entirely, it can be reduced, and tools like conference calls are a great way to help do just that. This cold and flu season, don't be “that guy”; take advantage of the tools at hand to make the season run smoother for all concerned.
Edited by Maurice Nagle