Workers are doing away with picking up the telephone and ringing in sick and are instead sending their bosses a text message letting them know they won’t be into work. This may be to their bosses’ ire, however, as 72pc of managers think texting or emailing in sick is a “cop out”, a survey suggests.
One-quarter of 10,000 people surveyed by Covonia said they have sent their bosses text messages to let them know they were sick and staying home rather than ringing them on their phones.
One in six even admitted to sending their boss a message over Facebook about being ill.
An employee calling in sick because of a cold, however, would arouse suspicion that they are lying to get a day off, according to 15pc of managers.
Some managers admitted to calling their employees who said they were off sick on a different phone number, with one in 20 managers even driving to an employee’s house.
The advent of social media has some bosses checking up on their sick employees on Facebook, with 20pc admitting to checking their sick employee’s page on the social network, while 34pc of people said they avoid using Facebook on a sick day to keep their boss’ suspicion at bay.