Recession: Employees work even during illness

Over one-fifth of the corporate sector employees surveyed by an industry chamber preferred to be in their workplaces even when they fell sick on fears of losing wages, incentive and goodwill.

As many as 32 per cent of the employees covered in the Assocham survey did not take leave during April-December without necessarily being fit.

Seventy-three per cent of those who did not take leave were sick. "But they pulled themselves to workplaces," said the chamber, which did the survey based on responses from 210 employees in 200 companies.

It said 38 per cent of employees took sick leave between 1 and 7 days, while 12 per cent were absent from workplace between 8 and 15 days.

Nearly all the organisations covered in the survey witnessed a phenomenon of "presenteeism" -- sick employees showing up, but performing below par affecting the output quality, it said.

Over 50 per cent of the participants said their firms were not implementing any health programmes.