Do NOT go into work today

Ah, the last bank holiday of the summer: a good chance to nip into the office while it’s empty to catch up on a bit of work. Except it isn’t, really.

Research at the Sainsbury Centre of Mental Health suggests that presenteeism – the need to be at work outside of working hours or despite feeling unwell – is an even bigger problem than absenteeism. Professor Sir Cary Cooper at Manchester University has referred to it as the biggest threat to UK workplace productivity, costing the UK economy almost twice as much as absenteeism.

What are the causes and consequences of this widespread practice?

When Claus Hansen and Johan Andersen, at Harning Hospital in Denmark, interviewed almost 13,000 workers, they found the factors most strongly associated with presenteeism are: long working hours, a small, intimate workforce and an over-commitment to work.

Gunnar Aronsson at the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm interviewed more than 3,800 workers and found those in the educational sector and caring professions are most at risk, particularly if staffing levels and pay are low, and if it’s difficult to find a stand-in when someone is ill. Other studies add job insecurity and lack of managerial support to the list. The consequences of presenteeism are detrimental both to the company and to individual employees. For the company, presenteeism may seem beneficial. In the longer term, however, any such benefit is cancelled out.

Gunnar Bergstrom and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm interviewed more than 5,000 workers and found presenteeism resulted in poorer health generally, as well as an increased risk of more than 30 days sick leave in future. Evangelina Demerouti at the University of Utrecht, who interviewed 258 nurses, points out that it creates a vicious circle: the more exhausted employees become, the more likely they are to try to compensate

– and as a result, the more vulnerable they are to further illness.

Despite this evidence, most companies ignore or overlook presenteeism. What should they do instead? Managers should offer regular confidential meetings, allowing employees to talk freely about workload and other issues that impinge on their wellbeing. They should offer seminars – as part of paid working time – when employees meet together to learn practical ways not only to manage problems such as anxiety, sleep disturbance and chronic pain, but also to learn ways to enhance general wellbeing.

Wherever possible, they should set up a “buddy system”, so each employee has someone familiar with their workload who can cover when they’re unwell.

These practices cost money, but the investment will pay off. Companies that promote employee wellbeing will in the long run outperform any that emphasise only productivity.