The presenteeism ‘hotspots’ and how to address them

Recent research found that working while unwell is not always bad for organisations or employees, but the more damaging instances of ‘presenteeism’ should be stamped out. Ben Moss looks at the presenteeism hotspots and how these can be addressed.

The concept of presenteeism has increasingly garnered attention as organisations have struggled to understand and measure its impact.

One major difficulty that businesses face is that the term has previously been used as a catch-all, with definitions differing significantly.

If businesses were to believe the frequent headlines on the topic, then all behaviours currently thought of as presenteeism – that is, all instances of working whilst unwell – are detrimental to productivity and ultimately very costly. However, our first instincts, and then our data, were telling us something quite different.

Through our latest Seeing presenteeism differently research, we wanted to help businesses gain some clarity by providing a framework to help them measure the real prevalence and impact. We knew that the cost to business cannot be measured effectively when there is no singular, clear definition of presenteeism.

In response to this challenge, we used our experience and data to develop a new taxonomy to help organisations measure and manage different types of “working whilst unwell.”

Our research identified three distinct types of working whilst unwell, only one of which should be classed as presenteeism and eradicated from…