CIPD's Rachel Suff on how to tackle presenteeism

There is growing evidence among our CIPD membership, as well as from various research studies, that a culture of presenteeism is on the increase in UK workplaces.

This means more people coming into work when they are unwell which is not a sign of a healthy workplace.

For several years we have asked respondents taking part in our annual Absence Management survey, conducted in partnership with Simplyhealth, whether they had observed an increase in employees showing up for work when sick.

The number of organisations agreeing they have has remained constant at around three in 10. According to our most recent 2016 survey, three quarters report they have observed presenteeism.

The findings show that the rising trend of presenteeism over the past decade cannot merely be attributed to the job insecurity that has been a consequence of economic recession and job losses. Our research also shows that the wider organisational climate has a significant effect on people’s behaviour in relation to presenteeism.

A higher proportion of people coming to work when ill is associated with a culture of long working hours while, by contrast, organisations that focus more on employee wellbeing are less likely to report increases in presenteeism.

Presenteeism more damaging than absenteeism

The latest thinking is that presenteeism can potentially be more harmful than sickness absence both for individuals and organisations. At an economic level, the Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employers,Thriving at work, cites analysis that captures the costs to employers of both presenteeism and absenteeism due to mental ill-health.

The cost of presenteeism is more than double that of absenteeism – between £17bn and £26bn compared with £8bn, respectively. The report acknowledges that there’s some uncertainty about the costs of presenteeism. This is a difficult area to identify and measure but there is no doubt about the potentially damaging impact of it.

For example, our Absence Management 2016 report finds that: “More than half of those organisations that had noticed an increase in presenteeism report an increase in stress-related absence compared with less than a third of those who hadn’t.” They were also twice as likely to report an increase in mental health problems.

The wider impact of presenteeism

It’s clear that if there is a culture of presenteeism and people feel they need to come to work when ill this can affect their mental wellbeing, or make their condition worse. It could also affect performance, which could lead to wider organisational problems such as prolonged sickness absence, costly errors, lost business, lower morale and reduced productivity.

For all these reasons, and the fact that employers need to be fostering a positive working environment that encourages good wellbeing, presenteeism needs to be identified and challenged. It is encouraging that nearly half (48%) of organisations in our survey have taken steps to discourage this unhealthy behaviour, a considerable increase on previous years.

Others can follow suit by:

encouraging leaders and managers to role model the right behaviour and not work when unwell
providing appropriate training and guidance for line managers/supervisors on how to deal with it
fostering a climate based more on outputs than inputs.

The root causes of presenteeism also need to be addressed, for example, unrealistic workloads, or managers unwittingly fostering a long-hours culture. It’s only by understanding the factors causing a presenteeism culture that an organisation can successfully tackle the day-to-day behaviours underlying this phenomenon.

Rachel Suff is senior policy adviser at CIPD.

Download a copy of the 88 page Employee Wellbeing Research 2018 (free to REBA Professional Members and all those working for REBA Associate Members).

If you would like to learn more about employee wellbeing, register here to attend the Third Annual Employee Wellbeing Congress on 5 July 2018.