Flu Shots

Last week I had my annual Flu Shot, as it is now Autumn in this part of the world. Like most people I do not particularly like being sick. The injection was mostly harmless, and was actually free. Monday I was working at a clients office, and noticed signs in their lift advertising free Flu Shots for their staff too. This got me to thinking why more companies do not actually offer Flu Shots to their staff. And why more people do not get Flu Shots.

In many cases I guess it is that people do not actually get around to it. In other cases, they feel that they never get sick, so there is no need. But, let’s think about this from a business perspective. How much does it cost for a single person to be off work sick? The cost of a single person being sick will often be more than $200 in wages alone. Add on costs and loss of productivity and the cost increases significantly.

So, assuming that a Flu Shot costs $20, all it takes is one person out of ten not to get sick for one day for the business to save money. But people with the flu often spend more than one day off work. And then they also often infect other people. In this case, the costs very quickly add up. Asking your employees to get a Flu Shot makes good business sense. It should also be remembered that people may be carriers of the flu without being sick themselves.

Aligned to this is requiring people not to come to work if they are sick. In many work places people are encouraged for whatever reason for coming into work when they really should not be in. An ex-boss of mine found this out when we were stuck in a traffic jam on the way to site in a tunnel, and he had a cold. I ended up getting a much worse cold than he had, and needed to spend most of the next week off work. I am glad to say that he learned his lesson.