Presenteeism: what is it and how to avoid it

13 of October, 2022

Labor presenteeism refers to performing other tasks, which are not specific to the job during the working day. This reveals a major problem and a negative impact on business productivity as low performance harms the company. It can also negatively affect the health of workers, so it is something to keep in mind.

What is presenteeism at work?

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “chair warmer” more than once, right? Well, this is what workplace presenteeism is all about. The term is opposed to labor absenteeism, which refers to workers not coming to their place of work. In this case, presenteeism refers to going to work but dedicating time to other personal tasks, or procrastinating. It affects employee productivity and motivation so much that it is even treated as a disease. Moreover, due to the internet, presenteeism is increasing. 

So, although work presenteeism is the opposite of work absenteeism, the truth is that its consequences are equally harmful.

What causes work presenteeism?

Before blaming presenteeism on employees, it is important that we ask ourselves what are the reasons that lead employees to carry out this type of behavior. In this way, problems and errors can be detected in their behavior or in their working environment.

Mainly, the causes for labor presenteeism are inadequate organizational factors or personal situations.

Labor presenteeism caused by organizational factors

These factors are closely related to the company or the work environment and can be very diverse. Employees may be afraid of being fired. They may also be afraid of not meeting a mangers’ expectations, or feeling that they have an excessive workload. But it can also be caused by a lack of communication, having unachievable goals, feeling poorly supervised or experiencing cases of workplace harassment.

In all these cases, the early detection of presenteeism is very important in order to improve the worker’s situation as soon as possible.

Labor presenteeism caused by personal factors

In this case, the lack of motivation at work is caused by difficult personal situations. Workers are usually going through complicated personal or family moments, but they prefer to go to work anyway. During these moments, work presenteeism usually originates.

In these cases it is important to show support to the worker and provide solutions for both parties. These are usually complicated moments that need understanding.

What are the consequences of labor presenteeism?

The main repercussion of labor presenteeism is that it affects the employee’s state of mind, so the person can feel very demotivated and even have the feeling of being burned out. But other consequences can also be, apart from the decrease in productivity, an increase in stress, occupational accidents, conflicts, uprooting or talent retention decrease, among others. In addition, labor presenteeism is usually very closely linked to the Boreout syndrome, which is about boredom at work due to the feeling of having to be at the workplace for hours without knowing what to do, something that in the long run causes great demoralization.

10 ways to avoid or prevent workplace presenteeism

To prevent presenteeism at work, it is essential to focus on the company’s workers, make them feel comfortable and have all their needs covered. In addition, there are a series of actions that can be taken to avoid these situations.

• Increase worker autonomy.
• Bet on flexible hours and smart work.
• Improve communication with employees.
• Facilitate continuous training.
• Provide the necessary resources to employees to develop their activity in perfect conditions.
• Define clearly the responsibilities and roles.
• Listen to employee feedback.
• Avoid monotony and task automation.
• Generate challenges.
• Motivate goal achievement.

How can companies detect presenteeism?

Apart from paying close attention to the consequences of labor presenteeism that we have mentioned above, there are other measures to detect this problem.

The first thing we want to recommend is to avoid intrusive measures towards employees, such as the restriction of access to certain web pages, or the excessive control of supervisors, since this can generate rejections, confrontations and end up aggravating the problem.

So, opting for task tracking tools is a very good option to notice drops in productivity, which can be caused by presenteeism. In the case of Sesame HR, the tool allows access to reports, within the task manager, that can be filtered by employee and by project, so it is very easy to detect inconsistencies. You should check if excessive time is spent working on tasks that do not require it, or if there are tasks without computing or secondary tasks are being carried out avoiding the main ones. In the case of seeing this type of issues, relevant decisions can be taken.