Should you work when you’re ill?

"I'm too ill to come in today."

It’s coming towards the time of the year when those discussions about whether you should carry on working when you’re ill take place.

Should you come to work with a cold?
What should you do about work when you have ‘flu?

When you’re in employment you think about the question in particular ways.

When you’re in business, or self-employed, there are additional issues to consider before you decide whether you should be working.

Is your judgement impaired?

You’re just starting a consulting business.  You’re in business as a consultant with a complex offer to sell.  You don’t have time to be ill, and yet, you know you will be.

Your business is an expert business, a business built around your:

• intellectual faculties
• expert knowledge
• ability to solve customers’ problems.

You need to be sure your ability to practise your profession will not be diminished by your ill health.

If your judgement is impaired by ill health, the cost of the mistakes you make, if you work whilst you’re not well could far outweigh what you will lose, if you cancel one or two days’ consultancy.

Before you convince yourself that you can soldier on, think whether it is in your business’s best interests for you to do so.

Are you infectious?

Stand in the customer’s shoes for a moment before you answer this question.

How will the customer feel if you come to spend time in his or her office and you’re breathing germs all over the place? Remember your customer is stuck with that same office environment after you’ve made your visit and will continue to share it with your germs after you leave.

How will he or she feel about breathing in more germs even after you’ve gone?

How will your customer feel about you if, two days after your visit, he or she starts to experience those same symptoms that you were exhibiting?

I’ve heard senior people in organisations be highly critical of consultants who have visited them and spread germs around.

Sometimes coming to a meeting with a cold can cost you any future work you might have gained in an organisation.  Senior people may expert their employees to come to work with a cold.  They regard you as discourteous if you show up in the same condition.

Will working make you worse?

If you carry on working when you’re ill, are you actually making your illness last longer?  Is it counter-productive to force yourself to carry on?  Would you recover more quickly if you just stopped working for a couple of days?  Does it make good business sense for you to stop?

Ask yourself if what you’re doing is so important and if the activities you were planning to do are so time critical that they can’t wait for a few days.

What’s your sickness strategy?

Sooner or later every one who is self-employed or in business is faced with the dilemma of what to do when ill.  Don’t pretend you won’t be placed in this situation Don’t ignore the challenge.  Don’t forget about being ill and promise yourself you’ll deal with the problem when the time comes.

Decide on your sickness strategy now.

Make your plans whilst you’re well.

You know how colds and similar infections progress once you catch them. You know what tends to happen to you when you succumb to these conditions.

Make your plans now when you’re well.

Decide how you’re going to deal with those conditions that strike in the winter before they do.

There are lots of options available to you.  Let  me know in the comments what you decide.

This is the fifteenth tip in a series of one hundred tips for people starting a consulting business.  For the  complete list of the tips see:

Starting A Consulting Business: 100 Tips