Remote work and sick days

a double-edged sword

Everyday at work, people often share their mood for the day alongside their slack standup, which might look something like:

☀️ Feeling good after a nice weekend, looking forward to the week

In recent weeks though, I’ve noticed a lot of mood check-ins that look a lot more like:

🤒 Caught my kids’ cold, feeling pretty awful

😴 Still recovering from last week’s cold

With this winter’s “triple-demic” of flu, RSV, and COVID, back-to-back illnesses has hit the team (especially parents) pretty hard. I’m not sure if it’s because for some of us, it’s the first serious cold we’ve had in a few years so we forgot how awful colds can be, or if our immune systems are particularly weak after a long stretch of pandemic precautions. Probably a combination of both.

I remember when I worked in an office, sometimes people would be out for a few days because they were sick. If you woke up feeling awful, it seemed much more acceptable that you shouldn’t really make a long commute to work, possibly spread your illness to your coworkers, and make the same commute back home.

Nowadays, with remote work and the blurring of lines between work and home lives, I find that it’s much harder to take even a single full sick day, not to mention multiple sick days. The selfless reason of not wanting to infect people is no longer there, so it feels like you’d have to be like really sick to fully disconnect. I’ve noticed that the norm is more to let people know you’re sick, but then try to make a few meetings, or to work at reduced capacity.

When remote work and illnesses work well

This flexibility and the idea of a more dynamic sick day can be great if people are intentional about taking time to recover, and they work in a high-trust environment where people are trusted to make good decisions for themselves.

Sometimes colds can last for 2+ weeks, and I don’t expect or need to take two weeks off of work. But I appreciate the ability to take a day or two off when it’s at its worst, and then work at reduced capacity from the comfort of my home with the option of napping in my own bed if I need a break, until I’m fully recovered.

I also have seen coworkers get creative during recovery and do things like opt out of meetings and only do non-meeting work for that day.

Communicating well with your team (especially when remote) is important. When I had a cold and was at reduced capacity, I tried to share explicitly with my team what percentage I felt like my capacity was at (50%, 80%, etc.). Sick half-days are also a nice way to ease back into things — I find my teammates are generally very accommodating to move or cancel 1:1s so I can free up a half day to rest.

When remote work and illnesses don’t go well together

Where remote work and sick days goes awry is when people feel like they can’t the time they need to recover — whether that’s taking a sick day, or taking multiple sick days, or working at reduced capacity until they are fully recovered.

I’ve definitely had times when I’ve felt definitely very sick, but felt like I should still try to make it to a few meetings, or that I’d still try to move a few things forward, or just work at reduced capacity the whole day. But trying to work a whole day (not very successfully) and actually letting go of work and taking a full sick day are very different — and the former probably prolongs illnesses, affecting your ability to work for even longer.

When I’ve shared that I’m not feeling great, but will try to get some work done, I’ve had thoughtful coworkers ping me to remind me that the option to take the full day is there. And I’ve pinged the exact same coworkers the following week when they are trying to work through an illness with the same reminder. Sometimes that nudge is just what we need to give ourselves permission to disconnect and focus on recovery.

A year or so ago, I also remember telling a coworker that I felt bad taking PTO for a long weekend because I was sick earlier in the week. She said “That’s some capitalist bullshit. You deserve rest, you don’t need to earn it.” May you all work with such wonderful coworkers (or be this coworker for your teammates) who remind you that we are humans not machines, and that we deserve time off when we are sick, we deserve to take the time and space to focus on recovery and taking care of our bodies, and that taking time off because you’re sick doesn’t mean you can’t take regular PTO.

But boy, is it still hard. Productivity and work and pushing ourselves beyond healthy limits are so engrained (and even celebrated) in our society. It’s hard to unlearn.

Here are some thoughts to help you if you find yourself in an ambiguous should-I-take-time-off situation.

• Ask yourself, if I had to go into an office, would I take a sick day? If yes, probably take a sick day if you’re remote.

• If you are in a position of leadership, take sick days when you are sick. People are watching what you do whether you like it or not, and it creates the norms for your team.

• When you hear coworkers mention being sick, encourage them to take a sick day. The work can wait.

• And if you are super motivated by personal productivity, ask yourself if it’s even worth it. When I’m feeling healthy, I can probably get something done in half an hour that would take several hours when I’m not at my best. Much more efficient to invest those few hours in a nap and get better sooner.

I hope that the next time you’re sick, these prompts are helpful to figure out what would be most supportive for your recovery.