Study: Paid sick leave beneficial for businesses
The United States is one of the few developed nations without federal paid sick leave protection, owing at least in part to concerns about potential harms to business, according to a new study. Yet, researchers studying the issue found that access to paid sick leave could have benefits for businesses.
Among them: fewer occupational injuries, less spread of contagious disease and fewer employee deaths.
Paid sick leave was also linked to positive business conditions, including employee morale and job satisfaction, improved retention, higher profitability and performance as well as favorable labor market conditions, the study found.
Researchers at FAU and Cleveland State University reviewed 22 years of research examining the relationship between paid sick leave and short-term and long-term U.S. business outcomes. They also reviewed the relationship between paid sick leave and job satisfaction, morale, job commitment, turnover, retention, employee health and safety, occupational injury, absences, labor market effects, profitability, productivity and performance.
“Considering the weight that has been given over time to the potential harm of paid sick leave to business, we were surprised to find so little evidence to support this concern,” said lead author Candice Vander Weerdt, a lecturer at the College of Business at Cleveland State. “Aside from small increases in worker absence, what we found was actually the opposite, a trove of evidence suggesting paid sick leave is linked with favorable business outcomes.”
In recent years, 14 states have enacted paid sick leave mandates, while 18 states have passed legislation prohibiting paid sick leave laws.
It’s been estimated that going to work sick costs U.S. companies billions of dollars each year in lost productivity.
Study findings were recently published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.