And the Number One Answer Is:  A Chicken Attacked my Mom.

It is a stretch, but considering the fact that our fine-feathered friends are known harbingers of dangerous flu strains that can jump to one human and infect millions, perhaps one could make the argument that this excuse for taking a sick day is not too outrageous. However, that being said, the folks at iCIMS’ partner CareerBuilder, who just compiled their annual list of the wackiest excuses employers received from employees calling in sick, listed the "chicken attack" as their number one choice. Other notable responses included a finger stuck in a bowling ball, a foot stuck in a garbage disposal, and my personal favorite, just not feeling very clever that day. Unusual excuses aside, most employers did report believing their workers when they called in sick, while 29% checked up on the sick employee, and 16% said they had fired an employee whose excuse had not quite panned out.

Growing up with a mother who is a physician, I learned early on that I could not feign an illness and score a day off from school as I suspected some of my friends did, and that ethic has carried over into my working years. No crazy excuses about bowling balls, poultry, fake coughs and sniffles on the phone when I call the office. I appreciate the ability to take time off when I am feeling under the weather and use the privilege sparingly. However, it is important as we again enter cold and flu season (as evidenced by the timing of the annual CareerBuilder survey, and even my colleague’s blog from this time a year ago) to take that day off when seasonal viruses start flying around the office. During the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, for example, about 8 million American workers went to work with the flu, spreading the infection to an estimated 7 million more workers. The ability to take paid sick days is more than just a benefit for individual employees, it also serves an  important public health purpose and probably saves employers money thanks to less lost productivity.

With such strong evidence to support the case for paid sick time, however, many workers simply do not have that ability. They either have jobs that don’t offer paid time off or actually fear they may lose their jobs if they call out. To remedy this situation, many locales, including New York City and Philadelphia, are considering legislation to mandate paid sick days. In San Francisco such legislation has been on the books since 2007. Of course, many business owners argue that extending such a benefit would harm their business, despite the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that the real cost for paid sick days would work out to about 8 cents an hour for private sector jobs.

For those employers who do offer paid sick days, whether by mandate or not, be sure to let prospective talent know it by touting it on your Career Portals. And if it seems like you have heard the excuse about the chicken attack before, start tracking how many run-ins with renegade barnyard fowl that your employees have experienced (as well as their more conventional sick day excuses) with an Employee Management System. 

What are some of the best excuses that you have received from employees calling in sick?  Be sure to list them in the comment section below.

Uh oh. One minute, someone’s kid is petting a pig at the state fair, and within days, your whole office is down for the count: HR, IT, Accounts Receivable and Payable, the FedEx guy – everyone has the flu (relax- I know it doesn't really come from pigs). Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do at this point, besides send everyone home for helpings of CDC-mandated Chicken Soup and Orange Juice.

But is that really the best option? During your typical flu season, work tends to pile up, but in the next few months, HR professionals are expecting an unprecedented number of absences across the board as H1N1 lodges itself in the bodies --- and fears – of the working population.  In fact, in a study done last month by the Harvard School for Public Health, only one-third of businesses are confident they could maintain operations if half of their workforce reported absent due to H1N1. That said, what’s a business to do?

Enter Software-as-a-Service, and the beauty of the Cloud Revolution. Because of the internet, a growing number of employees can work from home with an unparalleled access to the tools and technologies they would otherwise only have at their desk. Already, tools like Google, VPN and WebEx let workers communicate and collaborate over the web, but a number of companies are starting to harness the advantages of SaaS to do more robust work, regardless of where they work from. Companies like iCIMS.

With tools like the iCIMS Talent Platform, Human Resources staff and managers can manage the entire recruiting lifecycle from home or anywhere else. Accessible through a common browser, users can easily handle Applicant Tracking, Onboarding, Candidate and Employee Management, Requisition creation and much more. 

Plus, these technologies are some of the best ways of fighting Presenteeism, a trend where employees come to work despite being sick. While this might sound like a good thing (“office hero!”), it’s really only good for spreading the flu, and obviously, it’s better to have one employee out than ten the week after.

Of course, the jury is out on whether H1N1 is going to be the threat it's being made out to be, but any time companies want to take some of the sickness risks out of the office (or just help save some money on transportation costs) the advantages of Software-as-a-Service are pretty clear.

Now, instead of refreshing the Google Flu Trends website at the first coworker’s sniffles, Human Resources can just go home and work on their recruiting initiatives from their home office. And, if they really do get sick, the bed and cartons of OJ are just steps away.