Sick guilt is remorse or a feeling of guilt that employees feel when unable to complete their responsibilities, obligations, or expectations due to illness. The word illustrates the emotion of an employee being unable to complete work-related duties on time due to sickness or bad health. There can be severe consequences of sick guilt such as diminishing psychological health, deteriorating work motivation, poor work-life balance, increased recovery time, lesser job satisfaction, increasing fear of losing the job, feeling obligated to work for prolonged hours, etc
The word sick guilt has its origin in the emotion of an individual that fluctuates with changes in circumstances, behaviour, mood, etc. The word “sick” comes from the English word sēoc, which means ill, and the word guilt has its origin in the Old English form gylt” crime, sin, fault, fine, debt” which is a sense of guilt due to wrongdoing as per Wikipedia.
The feeling of sick guilt can occur due to various reasons such as poor work culture, faulty management policies, cognitive conditioning to be a giver, blurred work-life boundaries, poor mental health conditions due to sickness, job insecurity, self-hatred, etc. However, the feeling of remorse due to sickness is frequent in employees having a strong employee connection with the organization yet, the excess of it causes employees to lose their productivity, innovation, and enthusiasm to perform efficiently.
To avoid getting affected by sick guilt, the employees need to:
- Communicate openly to the employer regarding the task details and backlog details.
- Plan their work by aligning it with their current health.
- Seek support from peers to get tasks completed for the time being
- Focus on self-conditioning.
- Prioritize mental health
- Tune in and acknowledge what you need.
The basic difference between unhealthy and healthy sick guilt is the intensity of remorse and its effect on the individual’s mental health. So, it is advised to communicate with your nearest person in case you feel the same.
