With the holidays fast approaching, do you find that more of your employees get “sick” the day before a holiday break?

And have you ever called in sick when you really weren’t? (Come on, tell the truth…..)

If your employees do (or if you’ve ever done so yourself), you and they are not anomalies: A survey conducted a couple of years ago found that about one-third (30 percent) of workers in the U.S. said they had taken a sick day when they weren’t really ill.

Those who played hooky said they did so because 1) they needed a break (49 percent of those who admitted to feigning illness) or 2) they needed to take time off for an ill or injured family member (22 percent of the hooky players).

Older and higher-paid workers were less likely to call in “sick,” while workers younger than 30 (ages 18-29) and employees who made less than $20,000 a year were the most liable to pretend to be under the weather.

However, calling in sick isn’t as prevalent as we may have thought. Seventy-seven percent said they fake illness only on “rare occasions” and only six percent said they used the “I’ve got a bad cough” ploy more than three times a year.

Yet, what’s really interesting is that 41 percent of those who call with a practiced sniffle and hacking sound believed that their boss knew they weren’t sick. More women than men believed they were better at getting away with the sick excuse than were men (53 percent vs. 46 percent), while single mothers were more confident than their married colleagues (55 percent vs. 45 percent). In addition, more than twice as many women (25 percent) as men (13 percent) under the age of 40 faked their own illness in order to stay home with a sick relation. This gap decreased dramatically when the workers were older than 40: 27 percent of women and 22 percent of men stayed home “sick” in order to take care of a family member who really was ill.

Our takeaway? Companies could look into offering personal time off instead of sick days, thus possibly helping employees to take time off when ill or when they need to take care of an ailing loved one. What’s more, companies should work to grow a culture where taking personal time off when someone is stressed or overwhelmed really is OK, so that workers won’t have to feel they have to lie in order to take time off in order to take care of themselves.

When you’re looking for skilled and reliable workers for your Tampa-area company, contact StaffEx. We can source and place great employees for your firm’s short- and long-term staffing needs. Contact us today.