To reduce productivity losses from employees calling in sick, Corporation \mathrm{X} implemented a new policy requiring employees to come into work unless they were so sick that they had to go to a doctor. But a year after the policy was implemented, a study found that Corporation X’s overall productivity losses due to reported employee illnesses had increased.
Perhaps the people who called in sick were actually sick, because the penalty for lying is higher, so the people who called themselves sick were really unproductive, whereas in the past the people who called in sick wanted to work at home, and weren’t really sick.
This question is ambiguous about how to measure productivity. Are you measuring output among sick and non-sick or among the sick?
“overall productivity losses due to reported employee illnesses” sounds like measuring productivity of the sick people.
Perhaps the people took less rest-time, didn’t rest enough, the underlying disease didn’t go away but went untreated, a small problem explodes, we have a metaphorical time-bomb?
None of my ideas are on the answer key.
Which of the following, if true, would best explain why the policy produced the reverse of its intended effect?
(A) After the policy was implemented, employees more frequently went to the doctor when they felt sick
(B) Before the policy was implemented, employees who were not sick at all often called in sick
(C) Employees coming into work when sick often infect many of their coworkers
(D) Unusually few employees became genuinely sick during the year after the policy was implemented
(E) There are many other factors besides employee illness that can adversely affect productivity
.
