Presenteeism: The Productivity Paradox

Author
Dr. Vijit Chaturvedi and Prof. Sanjeev Bansal
Keywords
Self-esteem; Resilience; College Students
Abstract
As organization are trying to achieve more by less it is evident that the pressure is increasing on the physical and mental health of employees in varied form. Presenteeism refers to reporting at workplace even when ill or even if unwell. This approach is slowly increasing due to the rising reassure of remaining competitive and excelling others in the unending race of competition. This is a more serious issue of concern as the data and conditions of absenteeism can be recorded, measured and diagnosed but presenteeism is comparatively difficult to assess and work upon. In fact presenteeism seems to be affecting the health of the employees much core than absenteeism thus requires a workplace attention in order to preserve the future vitality and organization credibility as a preferred place to work. The present paper emphasizes on various aspects of this concern with respect to the available factors leading to presenteeism, causes and suitable measures to reduce the dysfunctional outcome of this. It also highlights different measures available to measure presenteeism highlighting its striking features from absenteeism. The discussion will aid in bringing forth the relevance of such pertinent issue ensuring long term employee health, organization culture and climate practices intact and ensuring healthy employer employee relation along with employee productivity and efficiency.
References
[1] Ashby and Mahdon, (2010) Why Do Employees Come to Work When Ill? An Investigation into Sickness Presence in the Workplace, The Work Foundation.
[2] Aronsson G, Gustafsson K (2005) Sickness presenteeism: prevalence, attendance pressure factors, and an outline of a model for research’, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 47, No. 9
[3] Chatterji and Tilley (2002) ‘Sickness, absenteeism and sick pay’, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 54, pp. 669–687
[4] Collins et al, 2005, ‘The assessment of chronic health conditions on work performance, absence and total economic impact for employers’, Journal of Occupational Environmental Medicine, Vol. 47, pp. 547–57.
[5] Gosselin and Lauzier (2010), Health,absence, disability, and presenteeism cost estimates of certain physical and mental health conditions affecting US employers’, Journal of Occupational Environmental Medicine, Vol. 46, pp. 398–412.
[6] Gilbreath and Karimi (2012) ‘Supervisor behaviour and employee presenteeism’, International Journal of Leadership Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1.
[7] HERO,(2013). New Findings and Realistic Solutions to Employee Presenteeism: A whitepaper from the Health Enhancement Research Organization’, Health Enhancement Research Organization [Online]. Available from: http://herohealth.org/researchstudies/
[8] Lu et al (2013) cross-cultural examination of presenteeism and supervisory support’, Career Development International, Vol. 18, No. 5
[9] Léger et al,(2006) Professional correlates of insomnia’, SLEEP, Vol. 29, No. 2
[10] Parry and Jinnett, (2006), On the Brink of Change: How CFOs View Investments in Health and Productivity, Integrated Benefits Institute.
[11] Parry and Molmen, (2002)The Business Value of Health: Linking CFOs to Health and Productivity, Integrated Benefits Institute.
[12] Ramsey (2006) Presenteeism a new problem in the workplace’, Supervision, Vol. 67, No.8.
[13] Senden et.al(2016) Lost productive work time costsfrom health conditions in the United States: results from the American Productivity Audit’, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol. 45, pp. 1234–1246.
[14] Vézina et al (2011) Quebec Survey on Working and Employment Conditions and Occupational Health and Safety, Institute de recherche Robert-Sauvé ensanté et sécurité du travail (IRSST)

Received : 24 January 2020  

Accepted : 23 May 2020

Published : 04 June 2020  

DOI: 10.30726/ijmrss/v7.i2.2020.72010

Presenteeism: The Productivity Paradox