During secondary school, anyone with 100% attendance to school was given a reward at the end of the year. In University, if you had five absences within a 16-week semester, you would be failed on a course. Two failed courses and you were expelled. Creative courses I have applied for recently require almost 100% attendance. It is safe to say that attendance policies are everywhere, particularly in educational organisations and workplaces.
Whilst I understand the idea behind an attendance policy, too often these policies reward unhealthy attitudes toward the body. So let’s break down exactly why attendance policies are harmful.
They Reward Ignoring the Body
Strict attendance policies prepare people for hustle culture. They prepare you for the endless cycle of working past your limits that many workplaces require. Yet so much research out there suggests that this culture of constantly ignoring your bodily needs causes many different types of illness: from autoimmune illness and depression to heart failure and cancer.
So many people are so detached from their feelings, both emotionally and within their bodies. They are detached from the messages their body is trying to send them. This disconnect is fed by the constant need to be productive. But, as we see time and time again in experiments, people are more productive, efficient and simply happier, when they have space to listen to their bodies. With more space and freedom to rest, we are all more connected with our bodies.
By enforcing strict attendance policies, we are teaching people that it is more important to be at school or work than to respect your body and take time to heal. Ultimately, this causes the stress and burnout epidemic that we are currently facing.
By creating a gentler attendance policy or an open discussion around attendance, you are leaving space for people to rest when needed and work hard when they can. It helps connect individuals to their bodies and ultimately leads to less sickness.
It Punishes Sickness
My mum used to be a teacher. One year, she had a child with cancer in her tutor group. At the end of the term, the school asked her to give out attendance rewards to those students with full attendance. In this case, every single other child. She refused. How can you reward every single child in the room for being lucky enough to not have cancer?
This was a very obvious example of attendance rewards punishing the sick and disabled. However, it holds for every single case of rewarding 100% attendance. It will always punish people who are sick and reward those who are lucky enough to have good health.
They Reward Spreading Illness
The more you reward 100% attendance or punish lower attendance, the more you encourage people to come to work or school with contagious illnesses.
Not only is this attitude a reason why viruses like COVID spread like wildfire, but it is also dangerous for a lot of people. A higher portion of people than you might expect are immunocompromised in some way. Other people have illnesses like mine, where catching the flu or a virus can trigger a full relapse.
When people go out and about with contagious illnesses, they are directly putting this group at risk. However, it is not entirely their fault. As a society, we are punishing people for not coming to work or school sick. Worse still, it is worn as a badge of commitment to come to something whilst still ill. So, unsurprisingly, people still participate in work, school and other activities while highly contagious.
This has become particularly dangerous and problematic in the last few years. The general public in the Netherlands is at an all-time low level of immunity due to COVID. So it is no surprise that everybody is sick all the time at the moment. Rather than staying at home, people with contagious illnesses are heading out and spreading this illness. But they only do this to keep their jobs or school grades up.
Bad for Healthy and Sick People Alike
Strict attendance policies punish the sick, but they are also not great for so-called “healthy” people. Not only do they disconnect you from your body, causing unnecessary stress on the body, but they also increase your risk of getting sick from both short-term and long-term illnesses.
The reality is that everyone is one step away from becoming sick or disabled. You never know when it will happen. So there is always a chance that even healthy people will have to use more absences than allowed. If there is a strict attendance policy, the only option at that point is for the person to drop out.
However, many more options can be explored to create a more inclusive and healthier environment for students and workers alike. It just requires a little more flexibility and communication.
Open Dialogue About Attendance
Now, I don’t want to pretend that I have an easy solution to all of this. However, I have been punished for my illness throughout my entire life due to ill health. So I do know that current attendance policies are a problem.
One suggestion is to have a more open dialogue between the manager or teachers and the students or workers. If you can be more open about your attendance, you can communicate and explain why you were unable to attend, not only can you show that you are still dedicated to the job or school, but you can also start talking about ways in which you can participate without physically being at the place.
Thankfully, we are in the modern world now, so there are inventions such as Zoom and Skype etc. They are not always ideal, but they are better than missing out or being punished for sickness. There are ways to include people who are sick, contagious or unable to leave home for various, legitimate reasons.
An open dialogue between people also allows for better safeguarding. When people do not have to hide skipping school from anyone there is less reason to lie about it. There is more space for honesty about absences, motivation and attendance.
Sure, that might sound a little vague, but there has got to be a better way to encourage participation and motivation ways than pushing for a culture that not only punishes the sick but makes everyone in the system sick too!
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