Do people in Sick India take more sick leave than in Health India? Both companies actually exist. Health India was set up in 1997 as a third party administrator for health insurance companies. “Real belly laughter can relax the muscles more than a vigorous massage,” it says on its website.

Sick India was set up in 2005, a subsidiary of the German manufacturer of sensors and sensor solutions for industrial applications. “Those who want to get ahead in the competition, need employees with special abilities,” says the website.

The answer to the original question: It’s all the same in sickness and in health.

D. Singh trots out this bit of HR humour. But Singh, a manpower consultant based in Mumbai, doesn’t find the issue of sick leave particularly humourous. In fact, it’s a growing problem in India.

Curiously, it’s a problem at both ends. HR professionals have to cope with workaholics, who refuse to go on leave. They feel they are dedicated executives, giving their best to their companies. “Actually, most of them suffer from lack of confidence,” says Singh. “Whatever they might profess in public, internally they are mortally scared that even a week away from work will see them sidelined.”

The problem is more acute, however, at the other end. One would have expected a gung-ho attitude in employees in an India that is going great guns. “It isn’t happening that way,” says Singh. “People increasingly want to get along with their careers, not with their jobs.” Adds an HR manager with a call centre: “All my staff are perpetually searching for their next job. When one takes sick leave, I jokingly ask him the next day which company he was interviewing with.”

According to the Aspect Contact Centre Index (a measure of contact centre indicators), India has less-than-average performance in HR management and agent attrition compared to other Asian countries. The country also had the highest level of full-time agent absenteeism. “On an average day, a contact centre in Asia expects 7 per cent of the workforce to be absent (sick or unexplained leave). The highest level of agent absenteeism is in India at 10 per cent per day and the lowest is in Korea at three per cent,” says the survey.

What causes absenteeism? It’s not really sickness. The 2006 CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey says that personal illness accounts for only one-third of the cases of unscheduled leave (see box). The biggest reason is low morale. This is a US survey, where even sick leave has been commercialised. If you don’t believe, take a look at the best-selling The Sick Day Handbook by Ellie Bishop. Among the gems it contains on excuses for reporting in sick is this one: “Conjunctivitis and irritable bowel syndrome are good excuses because no one wants to hear about the symptoms.”

Leave the Americans to stomach their own problems. On a serious note, a team from London’s King’s College has found that depression and anxiety have replaced musculoskeletal conditions such as backache as the most common reasons for people starting to claim long-term sickness benefits. These benefits, available after a person has been sick for six months, cost the UK £13 billion a year.

The sickness malaise is coming home to roost in India too. What was once a feature in factories, though HR people have blamed it on Bacchus than Hygeia, is spreading to other staff. It’s not just call centres; it is a growing problem in almost all service sector industries. And there is still no real solution on how to cope with it.

Why employees bunk

It isn’t always because they are sick