Following Super Bowl Sunday, millions of U.S. workers planned to celebrate “Super Sick Monday”—the day-after event in which sports fans nurse hangovers from epic amounts of booze, fat, sugar, salt and excitement. In fact, an estimated 18.8 million gainfully employed people said they would take part in the nationwide call-out after partaking in the most American of all holidays, according to a survey by researchers at software corp. UKG’s Workforce Institute.
Even before the Kansas City Chiefs demanded the nation’s attention in a 38-35 win against the Philadelphia Eagles, and a late-game penalty that caused fan mayhem, one-in-five American workers—that’s 26.6 million—admitted that they planned on taking at least some part of a personal day to recover.
Of those fighting for their right to party and sleep in, 10.9 million planned ahead and received a pre-approved day off, 3.1 million said they’d call in “sick,” while 4.7 million said they’d simply “ghost” their bosses by not showing up and not letting anyone know. Another 7.8 million said they would drag themselves in late, and 9.4 million said they’d decide last minute whether or not to bail.
The numbers are based on a survey of 1,270 U.S. employees. Researches said they saw an increase of nearly 3 million absentees compared to the same survey in 2021.
The Workforce Institute, backed by a tech giant, said that the number of employees that wouldn’t show up to work without notifying their employers is alarming. They believe it is a signal that manager-employee trust and transparency is worsening. They found that 35 percent of people aren’t comfortable asking for time off on Super Bowl Monday and that 11 percent believe they’d be reprimanded just for asking.
The institute encourages managers to take the lead in improving relations by addressing Super Bowl weekend head-on. With two-in-five Americans supporting the proposal that the Monday after the Super Bowl should be a holiday, that is probably a good idea.
“Middle managers need to model the behaviors that they want to see from employees and treat their people the way they would want to be treated—that is to say, with authenticity and understanding,” Dr. Jarik Conrad, executive director of the Workforce Institute said in a press release. “We’re all human and all have lives outside of work. There are going to be times when we want to miss work to participate in a big cultural moment.”
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