HR Industry News

Presenteeism "not working"

— 24 April 2008 —

UK employees are spending too much time in the office, and are not necessarily working any harder.

Recent research shows that 40% of UK employees are staying at their desks longer than is necessary, and 21% believe that everyone in their office is expected to work overtime.

A quarter of those who stay longer admit to surfing the net, especially Facebook, while 12% say they arrive early or leave late even when they are short of work. 16% even admit that they stay late in order to be perceived as a hard worker.

One in five of those surveyed added that presenteeism has a negative impact on their personal relationships, while one in four say that the longer hours are affecting their health. Indeed, presenteeism doesn’t seem to have many positive effects, with only 8% saying that they have received a promotion or a pay rise as a result.

Paul Avis from Ceridian LifeWorks cited additional research by RightCoreCare, saying that: “In one organisation running an absence management programme, 4% of employees were causing 24% of absence, so when picked up on absence policy triggers, it became evident that a portion of these people were RHINOs - “represented here in name only” and providing no value to the business - in effect, pure presenteeism.

"Of the 4%, half left as they confirmed that they did not fit in the business and the other 2% not only decided to attend more often but also became more committed to the organisation. Hence the employer ironically never had to sack those exhibiting presenteeism through the use of the absence programme and now has a much more committed and productive workforce.”

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