Absenteeism is the management statistical term for counting the people who don't come to work, whether for legitimate reasons, e.g. being sick, or injured at work, or for non-approved leave, e.g. what we call in Oz, "taking a sickie", i.e. calling in sick when you aren't really sick.

The more recently invented term is presenteeism, which is what you are talking about, Wesley. People come to work when they shouldn't be there, if they are sick and need to rest up to make it a short illness, and especially if they are contagious. But as others have said in this thread, there are a lot of pressures on people to come to work, including a feeling of indispensibility, or feeling pressured to show their "commitment" to the job, or if they are casual workers they are often told that if they take time off sick they won't be called back to work there again.

If they are casual, too, they don't get paid sick leave so often they can't afford to take time off without pay. Believe me, I know, because I have been a casual worker for the past 10 years, until 4 months ago when I finally got a permanent job again. (Yay! A government job with excellent pay and work conditions, including sick leave and annual leave, which I haven't had the benefit of since I chucked in my super-stressful job with local government.)

My favourite little coaxing story, when trying to convince people who are sick to go home, is to tell them that in Tokyo, where there is such a high population, if someone comes to work contagious they are fined, because they can spread the disease so much and dramatically affect productivity by sending so many other people off sick. Alternatively, they are told they have to wear face masks while they are at work, to prevent the spread of germs. I can't see most people I work with walking around in a face mask all day. They would go home sick in preference to that.

At our workplace it is expected practice to clean our computers, the phone, and the desktop every day with antibacterial wipes, because we share desks between the day shift and the evening shift. It's a good practice to get into. When I worked face to face with customers, I often used to get some disinfectant on a cloth and wipe the counters, etc, to minimise the transmission of bugs and other greeblies.

This issue is a big no-no with me. You may have gathered that from my response. :-)

Helen