Taking a sick day triggers a chain reaction that causes your colleagues to also get sick.
April 1, 2026
Original Paper
Getting Sick from Colleagues' Absences through Cumulative Workload: Evidence from Home Nursing
SSRN · 6394898
The Takeaway
Sickness absence is 'contagious' through workload rather than germs. This study found that for every day a nurse is absent, their colleagues' cumulative workload increases so much that it generates 0.14 additional sick days in the group the following month due to exhaustion.
From the abstract
Sickness absence is widespread and costly, yet organizations rarely account for the full chain of consequences it sets in motion. When an employee is absent, their colleagues absorb the redistributed work. If that workload accumulates faster than workers can recover, it may compromise their own health and generate further absences. We study this relationship using monthly administrative data from 843 nurses in the largest home nursing organization in Flanders, Belgium, observed over twelve month