Ciera Cleese

Calling in sick to work makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Many worry that they’re not truly sick enough to warrant a day off, or that their boss will think they’re just trying to play hooky.

While more employers than ever recognize the validity and importance of mental health days to keep employees fresh and happy, calling in sick is often the simpler and more straightforward option.

With that in mind, this article will cover how to call in sick to work when you’re genuinely sick, and when you’d rather use sickness as a convenient excuse for a day off.

Key Takeaways:

It’s not your fault that you were or are sick, but it’s always possible that your absence will nevertheless have a negative effect on someone you work with, depending on the nature of your work.

For this reason, there are a few things you should do when you professionally call in sick to be conscientious of your boss and your coworkers:

Here are examples of different ways to call out of work professionally:

There are lots of ways to approach telling your boss that you can’t come into work, but at some point or another, you’re going to have to give them a reason. It should go without saying that not all of these reasons are as good as the others.

Here are a few examples of good reasons for taking off work:

Hey, we all need a random day off from work to recharge every now and then. If your employer offers personal days as part of your paid time off package, then you should be using those instead of sick days. But if your employer doesn’t offer personal days, your only choice is to call in sick.

The steps from above don’t really change, but there are some additional things you should keep in mind as you call in sick.

At some point in your work life, you’re going to wake up nice and healthy, but, for whatever reason, with the strong urge to call out sick.

They’ll be no good reason why you shouldn’t go to work that day — at least, no reason that your boss is likely to accept. But maybe you’ve been healthy all year. Perhaps it’s been a while since you took a day off work. Maybe you just really, really, really don’t want to go in.

Is it a good idea to use your sick days for personal days?

It depends:

That’s all we’ve got for this one — again, the biggest thing to keep in mind when asking for sick days off is that it depends on two major things.

The first is your company’s policy toward sick days, and what it recognizes as a “sick day” in the first place.

The second is your relationship with your boss, especially pertaining to how many sick days you’ve taken off so far.