The price of productivity loss

Presenteeism is a common and relatively costly phenomenon in the business world, yet many companies may not realize the impact of reduced productivity on their workplace culture.

While coming into the office demonstrates physical employee engagement, this may not be the reality. Lost productivity, mental health challenges, and reduced workplace wellbeing all generate significant presenteeism costs for managers. 

In this article, Product Expert Lauren Day discusses what presenteeism costs are, how businesses can identify reduced productivity and absenteeism, and how managers and employers can help to manage employee disengagement.

What is presenteeism?

“Presenteeism” refers to employees who work when they shouldn’t. More specifically, the term describes when employees perform work while not in the optimal physical or mental health state to do so. This could be due to an illness, injury, workplace stress, personal issue, or other performance-impairing conditions. 

What causes presenteeism?

The main cause behind presenteeism is that many employees who face challenges with physical health and/or mental health issues feel as though they can’t take off work to deal with them.  

This perspective has become even more prominent in the era of increased teleworking. With more employees working remotely, they feel the need to compensate for not being in the office and, consequently, to be constantly connected to work.

The cost of presenteeism

Presenteeism is problematic because employees are present at work but not fully performing. Even though they’re working on tasks, health problems, family concerns, or psychological issues hinder employees from doing those tasks well.

Connecting workplace productivity and employee wellbeing

Many employees keep issues to themselves, especially if they feel the work environment wouldn’t welcome the discussion or would involve judgment. Often, the signs of presenteeism hide in plain sight. Some signals include employees who are easily distracted, come in late (or leave early), have more conflicts at work, fall asleep on the job, or show a decrease in production levels.

Corporate, HR, team managers, and EHS professionals alike need to be aware of these issues and work together to protect against them. Paying closer attention to your employees and how they’re working is the first step to spotting presenteeism before it becomes a bigger issue.

It’s also incredibly important to provide opportunities for employees to share their concerns and mental health challenges. Just as employees communicate about a physical injury, they need to know that the same applies to any mental health or other “unseen” issues that could affect their performance. Encourage your workers to address managers, HR, or another designated role. When they do, provide a space and time for an open-minded  conversation about their health related productivity loss, which may include workplace stress, work life balance concerns, mental health support, sickness presenteeism, burnout, and more.

After educating your entire company on the dangers of presenteeism and how to recognize it in the workplace, have each team take the necessary steps to spotlight and solve presenteeism issues. Where possible, HR roles might revise policies to ensure they don’t unrealistically discourage absence.

If you’re an EHS professional, you can help prevent and resolve presenteeism by including its signs and symptoms in health and safety assessments as well as any related training. When evaluating or reporting incidents, evaluate the employee’s history of performance to check if there are any underlying and potentially chronic issues that could continue to cause problems.

Overcome the costly power of presenteeism

Most companies can agree that happy and healthy employees are better employees. And, as such, the pressure associated with zero absence isn’t usually what’s best for business.

Identifying and protecting workers against the stress and mental health risks behind presenteeism is critical not only for employee welfare and workplace morale, but also for the future state of your business.

Stay ahead of potential issues by keeping everyone aware and keeping lines of communication open. By making it a priority to prevent presenteeism, you’ll be safeguarding employees while setting up your company for more sustainable success.