There is presenteeism when it comes to the workaholic culture of American business, but there is also dragging yourself into work sick because if you don’t, you don’t get paid. It’s the latter that Black and Latina mothers disproportionately have to deal with and that Haleon’s Theraflu is trying to tackle with "The Right to Rest and Recover" campaign.
The Right to Rest and Recover website features “Calling in Sick,” a short film on the real-life struggles of three women who are impacted by a lack of paid sick days.
There are also some startling statistics from the Theraflu Temperature Check survey, including that 93% of Black women and 92% of Latina women surveyed admit to working while sick because they can’t afford to take a sick day and that 68% of Latina women and 61% of Black women said taking an unpaid sick day would cause financial strain.
This year, Haleon has partnered with Lisette Sanchez, Ph.D., a Los Angeles-based psychologist, in order to help spread awareness about the impact not having access to paid sick days has on mental health.
“Generally, an individual needs to make sure that they are having a strong foundation of their basic needs met in order to be psychologically healthy, and so something that really impacts this is when an individual is unable to take time off because of financial concerns,” Sanchez said.
This is the second year that the Theraflu brand is sponsoring the campaign, which works with the Good+Foundation, a nonprofit fighting generational poverty. The program is offering $200,000 in microgrants, at $161 per person, which was calculated as the average wages lost in an unpaid sick day.
In addition to the funds, there is a strong drive to influence policy change. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the U.S. is the only industrialized, high-income country without guaranteed paid sick days for its workers.
Haleon is also working with social influencers and using the hashtag #MakeRestARight to promote the idea of sick day equality.
“As a brand, Theraflu believes that rest and recovery time should be a right, not a privilege. We believe this initiative is a great example of how we are driving change through our purposeful brands such as Theraflu,” Sameer Rabbani, Haleon’s marketing lead for respiratory health, said in an email.
Haleon spun off from GSK’s consumer health unit in July and last month announced first-half revenues of 5.2 billion pounds sterling, an upswing of 11.6%. The company is working into the consumer health market with OTC staples such as Sensodyne, Advil, Theraflu and Panadol. According to Haleon, two-thirds of the company's portfolio gained or maintained market share in the first half of the year with an expected revenue growth of 6% to 8%.