Have you ever worked at a place where everything felt sluggish? You know, when it feels like someone’s sucked the energy out of the room, and it’s tough to be productive and focused? But you’re still there, at your desk or workspace, for hours and hours at a time.
Well that’s the presenteeism issue in a nutshell (something that is tackled through wellness in the workplace)!
Presenteeism is defined as “the the lost productivity and performance of an employee, or group of employees, when they show up to work sick, exhausted, or too distracted by their personal issues to focus on their workload”. They may be physically there, but not present in the moment!
It’s not fair to play the blame game on any specific person, or employee when you notice presenteeism. That’s because we live in such an incredibly complex world, that the presenteeism issue is bound to rear its ugly head from time to time.
That being said, there are most definitely ways to gauge presenteeism in the workplace, and ways to prevent it as well.
Read on to learn more about this topic! Click on the sections below to jump right to your specific question.
Presenteeism is closely related to absenteeism. The distinction is that absenteeism is defined as the failure to report for, or remain at work as regularly scheduled. People exhibiting absenteeism are scheduled to work, but they don’t show up for work or they don’t stay fur the duration of their work day.
Absenteeism doesn’t include scheduled paid time off (or scheduled unpaid time off), but it does include unplanned time off such as excessive sick days.
But presenteeism is more difficult to understand and change. We typically see presenteeism manifest in three ways:
The main idea here is that the individual cannot pay enough attention to their job or tasks due to either internal or external forces. We will cover more on the factors that lead to presenteeism below, and that will clarify the definition further.
According to research from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), absenteeism costs US employers a reported $225.8 billion annually (or $1,685 per employee). To contrast, researchers at the Global Corporate Challenge studied workplace data found that employees are absent from work an average of 4 days per work, but employees confessed to being unproductive (presenteeism) on the job for 57.5 days in a year (almost 3 working months, per year). The same study estimated that presenteeism ends up costing US employers $1,500 billion per year. Presenteeism has also tripled since 2010, so it’s important to pay attention to this building trend.
It’s tough to manage presenteeism, as it usually slips by in the regular day-to-day grind. However, there are some common factors that lead to higher chances of presenteeism:
The effects of presenteeism compound over time.
Productivity loss is the major impact of presenteeism. It’s easier to see the impact of absenteeism, but the impacts of presenteeism lurk in the shadows. There’s a reason why presenteeism costs organizations 6x more than absenteeism! According to Statistics Canada, lost productivity from presenteeism was 7.5 times greater than the productivity loss from absenteeism.
Another major impact of presenteeism is exhaustion and possibility of poor health in the future. When people don’t take time off (paid time off, or un-paid time off), they become increasingly exhausted. So a workforce that is exhausted makes itself more susceptible to illnesses (major or minor).And with roles involving manual labor, exhausted workers leads to higher chances of occupational injuries.
This bad habit can also spread illness at work! When sick people don’t take time off, there is a huge risk that the infected individual will spread their sickness to colleagues.
The good news: a recent study found that presenteeism costs businesses 10 times more than absenteeism…but is easier to fix. That’s why it’s important to create a cultural shift that prevents presenteeism as much as possible, but more on that later! Work and resource planning tools like Toggl Plan make it easy to manage a flexible work environment.
Now that we’ve talked about what presenteeism is, and it’s unfortunate impacts, we’ll discuss a few ways that you can use to prevent presenteeism in your organization! By keeping a pro-active gauge on presenteeism, it is easier for organizations to manage this hidden productivity zapper.
1. Anonymous Pulse Surveys: This is a great way to collect real-time anonymous data from your team. Remember all of the factors that lead to presenteeism? Our team can set you up with a custom pulse survey built to detect those factors of a presenteeism culture.
2. Monitoring Quality of Work: This method requires a lot more time, but still a great way to detect presenteeism. Psychologists recommend setting a benchmark of behavior and performance for employees. This qualitative gauge will let managers see how employees behave under “normal” conditions, and make it easy to see variances from the norm. So if an employee (or team) is usually quite productive, but hasn’t been producing at the same level for the recent time period, it may be a sign of presenteeism.
3. Speaking to Your Team: We’re all human at the end of the day. So it’s good to sit down with your team from time to time (or independently with everyone, if that’s more comfortable), get their feedback, and help them manage any external issue. The benefit of this method is that you’re further building your relationship with the team, and the open vulnerability that is created will enhance the personal/team chemistry.
Presenteeism is definitely preventable, or can at-least be drastically reduced by using some best practices. The ROI from these methods will not only prevent presenteeism, but it will also improve the workplace culture. Side note, research shows that a strong, positive, and wellness centric culture, with a focus on health and happiness, can:
1. Communicate the Need to Be Present & Allow Flexibility: It’s easiest to set the expectation up front with your team that when they are at work (or work from home), everyone should be present in the moment. When there aren’t any clear guidelines given to the team, that is an open invitation for presenteeism to creep in.
Setting clear expectations may not be enough, especially in todays day and age where the battle for talent is at its height. That’s why it’s important for organizations to get with the times and be flexible with their employees. Here are some best practices for creating a flexible work environment:
2. Create a Workplace Culture of Wellness: In order to promote workplace wellness, and all of its benefits, we need management to care about employees and support them to achieve what counts for them. Here are a few ways to create a Wellness Culture in your organization:
3. Management leading by example: Tying it all together in a complete picture, if management leads by example, it might be the easiest, most effective, and practical method to prevent presenteeism. That means that management should:
In conclusion, presenteeism can have a big impact on any business. That being said, it is important to be pro-active address factors leading up to presenteeism, rather than being reactive. When leaders commit to creating a Wellness Culture, the risk of presenteeism is significantly mitigated!
Interested in what wellness benefits look like? Check out the “How to Maximize Engagement with Wellness Challenges” for practical advice to foster employee engagement and boost morale through employee wellness challenges.
Want to learn more about corporate wellness? Take our three-part Wellness Foundations Webinar Series for HR managers. It’s a kickstart for anyone who wants (or needs) to dive head first into the industry.
Interested in speaking with a benefits expert for more one-on-one support? Schedule an introductory call with IncentFit. We’ll learn a bit more about your company’s unique needs and point you in the right direction.
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