Presenteeism is a growing challenge for businesses in the UK and one that can be extremely difficult to manage, especially if there are entrenched organizational processes and values which encourage it. The global events of 2020 have created many new difficulties for businesses, and unfortunately spotting the signs and managing presenteeism has become even more complicated post-Covid.
However, this isn’t to say there is nothing managers and business leaders can do to reduce presenteeism in their digital workforce - through sound corporate wellbeing strategies and good practice, it’s possible to mitigate the impact of presenteeism in the workplace.
What is presenteeism?
Presenteeism can manifest itself in two different yet related ways. In the first, an employee is present during office hours but fails to work at their full capacity as a result of illness, fatigue or lack of engagement. In the second, an employee will be present at work for more hours than required, with common reasons for high levels of unpaid overtime including:
- An unreasonable workload, unfocused working environment or trouble concentrating, where employees find they are unable to complete their tasks within a normal working day.
- A culture within an organisation where availability outside of working hours is either rewarded or expected.
- A sense of insecurity within their role which encourages employees to prove their dedication.
According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, presenteeism was a rapidly growing issue even in the days before COVID-19 prompted vast changes in the working world. In a 2018 survey including over 1,000 participants, 86% claimed to have witnessed presenteeism in their organisation during the previous year, up from just 26% in 2010.
This observation from employees could go some way to explain why, since 1993, the average number of sick days taken by UK workers has almost halved - falling from 7.2 days a year to just 4.1 in 2017. Without a cure for the common cold and back ailments as challenging to treat as they ever have been, it is possible that some employees are opting to attend work while unwell.
Another factor could lie in the development of a culture of presenteeism across a variety of UK organizations, where long working hours, skipping lunch and being continuously available by email or phone is interpreted as a sign of ambition and dedication. While it can make intuitive sense to many employers that the person who stays the latest does the most work, a comparison with the working culture in other countries provides some areas for consideration.
Germany, for example, enjoys markedly high productivity levels with an average of 35 working hours a week, valuing focus and efficiency as core attributes - to the extent that workers who work beyond office hours are suspected of poor time management rather than commitment. The United States, on the other hand, has a longer working week but falling productivity, with evidence suggesting that once an employee works over 50 hours a week, their output remains the same as if they hadn't put in extra hours in.
Why is it a problem?
“Exhaustion and presenteeism were found to be reciprocal, suggesting that when employees experience exhaustion, they mobilize compensation strategies, which ultimately increases their exhaustion.”
Present but sick: A three-wave study on job demands, presenteeism and burnout.
Whether employees are sitting at their desks until 9pm, calling into meetings on their holiday, turning up to work with a bad cold or are too bored or undertrained to fully engage with their work, presenteeism is a costly problem for employers. It is estimated that presenteeism costs the UK economy £15.1billion every year, making it nearly double the cost of absenteeism, and it can also be an indicator of deep-seated issues within an organization’s working culture.
Presenteeism is linked to a variety of problems for both employees and employers, such as:
- High staff turnover
- Stress and burnout
- The spread of infectious illnesses
- Loss of productivity
- Difficulty in managing sickness (especially “back to work” procedures)
For many employees, the most immediate concern is likely to be the loss of productivity from people clocking in but failing to truly engage with their work. But it’s important to stay equally aware of unpaid overtime, limitless availability and the use of holiday time for work, as these issues can contribute to mental health problems and burnout, and even prompt staff to leave an organization.
How has COVID-19 has impacted presenteeism?
“Presenteeism occurs when you show up to [work] without your brain fully engaged. Brain scans show that when tasks are repetitive or boring, your brain reduces blood flow to improve efficiency, getting the familiar job done while leaving the mind free to scan for potential dangers… For the nonessential employee working from home, the anxiety that creeps in can lead to obsessively doom-scrolling news sites or bouncing aimlessly from task to task as they scan Slack to make sure they’re the first to add an emoji on each new post to show that they’re “working”.
Leah Weiss, Fast Company
When the lockdown was introduced in March to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic more than four in ten of the pre-crisis workforce started exclusively working from home (38%), with another 8% now doing so some of the time. Away from the office environment and in the uniquely difficult circumstances of a pandemic, presenteeism as a management issue has become even more complex.
A study, commissioned by LinkedIn in partnership with The Mental Health Foundation found that people working from home during lockdown are clocking in longer hours than usual - with respondents reporting an average of 28 hours overtime per week. The same survey also found that 58% of HR managers fear losing staff to sick leave due to the mental health impacts of working in lockdown, while 54% said they believed that mental health issues amongst their workforce had increased during that time.
A further Deloitte study suggests that 38% of employees found that lockdown had a negative effect on wellbeing, with worries over redundancy, increased childcare responsibilities and stress over the illness itself likely to have had a combined impact on mental health. When taken alongside greater at-home distractions and less accountability when working from home for a large organization, people may be logging on without being in the right frame of mind to fully concentrate on their work.
The other face of presenteeism - that of working more hours than necessary - may also have increased during lockdown. Heightened job insecurity has prompted employees to prove their value to their employers, while being constantly pulled off task by children or other responsibilities may have many people working late to make up time lost during the day. Employees may also feel that they can’t justify a sick day when they can work from their bed.
What can organizations do to reduce presenteeism for remote employees?
Whatever the motivation for presenteeism - whether that’s job stress, a reluctance to let colleagues down, or not enjoying their tasks - effective corporate wellbeing strategies can help to address the issue, enabling employees to enjoy their work in a more healthy and balanced way. As a business owner or manager, if you’ve noticed a loss of productivity or colleagues working outside of their usual requirements, there are a number of considerations that can help to address presenteeism within your organization:
- Good communication
Without the water cooler chat and regular face-to-face meetings, employees may have started to feel adrift both from the wider team mission and the substance of what’s expected of them. Organize a daily meeting in which employees can discuss what they need to achieve that day, any problems they’ve encountered and the progress they’ve made so far.
As well as helping to cement team cohesion, this tactic keeps everyone on task, reminding employees of the ultimate aims of the company and their duties within the organization.
- Identify key motivators and address lack of engagement
If you have found that the engagement of certain individuals has been slipping as they’ve worked from home, arranging a one-to-one can help to get to the bottom of the problem. By making it clear that you aren’t pursuing disciplinary action and focusing on how you want to support their efforts to complete their tasks efficiently, you can bring unspoken issues into the open and plan constructive solutions in order to deal with them.
If, for example, an employee is finding it difficult to focus because they have a small child demanding their attention, you could point them in the direction of helpful resources and suggest solutions such as flexible working hours (perhaps giving them the chance to be offline between 10am to 1pm if they work later in the evening).
By learning each person’s key motivators, you can keep your entire team engaged by tying the team mission to those of the individual, and make sure that each person is responsible for the work that aligns most closely to their own sense of purpose.
- Suggest the use of time tracking apps
Time tracking apps can be an effective way to discourage presenteeism because they give a clear and identifiable sense of just how much time someone has spent at work. In the case of a time-pressured parent, enquiries from their children may make them feel that they have missed hours of work, putting pressure on themselves to make up the shortfall.
By being able to “stop the clock” on a task using a time tracker when their child knocks at the door, they can quantify exactly how much time they’ve spent elsewhere, and sign off confidently for the day when they’ve completed the amount of work that is expected of them.
- Encourage boundaries and lead by example
To put a stop to a “always on” culture, it’s important not to leave the enforcement of boundaries to your employees, who may start working overtime and skipping lunch in the absence of any instruction not to do so. Make it clear that employees are expected to take lunchtime off, that overtime should be the exception rather than the rule, and that no one in leadership positions will be answering emails at evenings or weekends.
It’s also important in a digital environment to explain to employees that illness policy still stands - if they are too unwell to work, then they should spend time recovering rather than attempting to struggle through the day.
Presenteeism can be a challenge for most organizations, but there are a variety of solutions and strategies available. By tackling the issue early you can help to ensure that staff are not only motivated, supported and working towards a common goal, but that you’re doing everything you can to ensure the profitability of your organization during these difficult times.
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