Most employees would choose to work remotely than call out sick: Poll

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss poll findings.

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- Well, the rise in remote work may have led to some unexpected side effects. With more and more companies giving employees the flexibility to ditch the daily commute, when feeling unwell, workers might still be inclined to punch in from their home office instead of actually taking a sick day, which begs the question, are sick days becoming a thing of the past?

Now, we polled our Yahoo Finance audience to see if they're still using their allotted time off. And we did see that from that poll, overwhelmingly, most people will choose to work remotely. 68.3% versus the 31% who said they would actually take a sick day. Now, I find this very interesting, obviously, because you have to sort of balance-- it depends on the sort of job that you have. But also, are you prolonging your sickness if you don't actually take the time off? Seana, what do you think?

- I think Dave might be the perfect person to ask about this. But I will jump in with my thoughts. It's not necessarily surprising. We know right now that working from home is so much easier, so much more common, clearly, than it was before the pandemic. I think there's a sense of guilt out there.

It's not warranted. But people do feel guilty for taking time off, that they're saying, hey, we could actually just lay in bed, work from our laptop. We don't have to take that sick day. In some cases, people aren't paid if they do take off, those hourly workers. So it's not necessarily a surprising trend. But Dave, you're the perfect person to ask about this.

- I am the test case here. But I've probably only taken a handful of sick days over my entire working career. I have been sent home more times than that. Yes, I had COVID, tried to work from home a week ago, and my boss who knows better and has better judgment said, no you're not. You're going to take this day off. Yes, I feel like a lot of Americans. Once we have the ability to work from home, how do you possibly call in sick?

Now, that may be the very reason that I am still sick two weeks later after contracting COVID. So you may have a point that you prolong that sickness. And that's what's interesting. You're seeing bosses almost more so than their employees say they feel like they have to continue working, but they're telling the telling their employees that you need to take time off when you're sick. So it's do as I say, not as I do.

But our Yahoo Finance poll was right in line with what a national survey found. About 2/3 of Americans say since they had the ability to work remotely, they are working through a sickness. And, ultimately, yeah, I don't know. The big question, is that good or bad for the system? That I cannot determine. But it seems like you probably are prolonging a sickness. Is this working mobiley a luxury? Or is it completely the opposite? This is an interesting question. I will continue to work from home sick, Rochelle.

- Oh, Dave.

- Well, Dave, I'm excited for you to hopefully come back into the studio. So maybe take a day or two off so you can rest, get better, and then I won't be solo in the studio. But, again, it is an interesting trend, not necessarily a surprising one, the fact that people are tending to work from home even though they're not feeling great. And, hopefully, they are taking that rest that they need in order to get back to 100%