At work but ill: psychosocial work environment and well‐being determinants of presenteeism propensity

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Many studies have shown that an unfavourable psychosocial environment increases the risk of mental and physical illness, as well as absenteeism, or sickness absence. However, more costly than absenteeism is presenteeism, where a person is present at work even though disabled by a mental or physical illness.We sought to identify factors explaining why workers would come to work even when their health is impaired. In a cross-sectional design data were collected from 3825 employees of a Canadian organisation.The results show a high occurrence of presenteeism: workers went to work in spite of illness 50% of the time. Presenteeism propensity (the percentage of days worked while ill over total number of sick days) was higher for workers who were ill more often. Heavier workloads, higher skill discretion, harmonious relationships with colleagues, role conflict and precarious job status increased presenteeism, but decision authority did not.Workers reporting high psychological distress and more severe psychosomatic complaints were also more likely to report higher rates of presenteeism.These results suggest that stress research should not only include absenteeism as an outcome indicator, but also consider presenteeism.

Association between perceived stress, self-rated health, work productivity and stress management interventions – a study of employees in the Slovenian processing industry

“…The findings are in line with previous research on the healthand productivity-related consequences of high levels of perceived workplace stress (i.e. Biron et al, 2006;MacGregor et al, 2008;Stansfeld and Candy, 2006). However, days of sickness presenteeism have not significantly contributed to the higher frequency of perceived stress in the regression model.…”

“…Numerous studies (i.e. Biron et al, 2006;MacGregor, Cunningam and Caverley, 2008) have confirmed that impaired employee's health and high levels of stress at the workplace result in lost productivity, arising from two sources: absenteeism and presenteeism. The first one refers to an employee's time away from work due to illness or disability (i.e.…”

Une étude sur le rôle modérateur des traits de personnalité sur la relation entre les conditions de l’organisation du travail et la détresse psychologique

“…Ils expliquent à eux seuls une grande majorité des cas d'absentéisme (Vézina et al, 1992;Vézina et Bourbonnais, 2001). De plus, ils sont la cause d'un nouveau problème émergent, soit le présentéisme au travail, c'est-à-dire le fait de se présenter sur les lieux de son travail sans y contribuer de façon productive (Biron et al, 2006). Nos connaissances sont encore limitées, ce qui restreint notre marge de manoeuvre au niveau du développement de plans d'intervention efficaces, d'élaboration de programmes de prévention ainsi qu'au niveau de la création de politiques publiques à cet effet.…”

Sickness presenteeism determines job satisfaction via affective-motivational states

“…The measure reflects the frequency of presenteeism behaviour as work attendance in spite of illness and does not conflate attendance behaviour with reduced performance. This single item has been used widely as a reliable short measure of sickness presenteeism (Biron, Brun, & Ivers, 2006;Demerouti et al, 2009;Vézina et al, 2011).…”