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The best excuse I’ve ever heard for calling in sick



By Richard Branson (@richardbranson)
Posted by admin on 2 February 2015

Today has been dubbed National Sickie Day in the
UK – because more people take this day as sick
leave than any other of the year. I’ve heard some
far-fetch, fantastic and fantastical excuses for
skipping work in my time. But what’s the best
excuse I’ve heard for calling in sick?
Images from gettyimages
I once called a sick crew member from Virgin
Atlantic to see how she was doing, only to be told
that she couldn’t hear who was on the phone as it
was too noisy at Ascot! It wasn’t much of an
excuse but more of a case of not covering her
tracks!
Ever since we started Virgin, we’ve always worked
hard to keep our staff happy and healthy. We
believe that if you look after your staff first the rest
will follow – a happy workforce is a healthier
workforce. Within our Virgin Management
headquarters, we run a range of initiatives to help
our people stay healthy. Fresh fruit and salad is
available free of charge. We have a flexible working
policy, allowing staff to work from home or stagger
their hours. Plus all employees can take part in the
Virgin Pulse programme, which monitors their
exercise levels and encourages them to get active.
Image from Virgin.com
Last year we introduced unlimited leave for Virgin
Management and Virgin Unite ; and while the
announcement caused a quite a stir, we’ve already
seen the benefits. By treating and trusting our staff
like the smart and capable adults they are, they
return the respect with outstanding productivity. We
truly believe that if you take care of your
employees, they will take care of your business.
These are just some of the initiatives we’ve
implemented to help us achieve a healthy and
motivated workforce. With these ideas in place, it’s
rare we see staff members ‘pulling a sickie’ –
instead they arrange their work schedule to help
them best achieve a healthy work-life balance.
Image credit: Virgin.com

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