When the employee punches the card every day, but appears at the company totally absent, disconnected from his work, the case has the characteristics of presenteeism .
The term refers to the behavior of people who, even physically present, have their thoughts away from the work tasks they need to perform.
Relatively common in the corporate environment, this practice can be quite harmful for everyone involved, from managers to employees.
To broaden your knowledge and understanding of presenteeism, we have built this article with important information about the concept.
You will discover, from now on, how to identify and avoid this pattern of behavior, in addition to knowing more about its impacts on the daily lives of companies and people.
What Is Presenteeism?
Presenteeism configures a form of absence in which the worker presents himself at his job, but is unable to dedicate himself completely to his tasks.
This type of behavior is related to stress and exhausting working conditions, which make people disconnect from the external environment to cope with their workday .
The professional who suffers from presenteeism goes to work every day, but is no longer able to emotionally link himself to his tasks .
In fact, presenteeism is a deviation from the expected behavior pattern in the work environment.
The expectation of every company is that its employee is able to have total dedication to work, which is valid for the time stipulated in the contract.
And the employee, in turn, stressed and discouraged, ends up unable to perform his duties satisfactorily .
All this dynamic ends up generating conflicts for the employee with the company and in his interpersonal relationship with co-workers.
What Is Presenteeism Syndrome?
The concept of presenteeism is still recent and, therefore, studies on the subject are few and inconclusive.
Still, its definition as a behavior is clear. And its effects are evident for everyone who has already passed through the job market .
When we talk about presenteeism, it is important to say that it does not represent a bad nature or flawed character of the employee who refuses to work.
Most of the time, it appears as a symptom in an employee who, due to being exposed to a great deal of stress at work, ends up depersonalizing himself as a means of protection.
This behavior is closely associated with Burnout Syndrome , which characterizes a chronic, emotional and physical exhaustion , caused by adverse working conditions.
In this sense, presenteeism is not a disease in itself, but a behavior of someone who has been sick for a long time.
In an article published in 2002, Professor Graham Lowe talks about the understanding of presenteeism as situations in which the professional goes to work sick or extremely tired .
He also describes occasions when the employee works overtime as a manifestation of commitment, because he doesn’t feel safe in the company and needs to prove his worth.
Effects Of Presenteeism
The practice of presenteeism is accompanied by consequences that affect both the employee and the company .
For the worker, the practice is often accompanied by physical and emotional symptoms of tiredness and exhaustion.
This is what a survey carried out by the International Stress Management Association in Brazil (ISMA-BR) with 1,000 workers, aged between 25 and 60 years, points out.
Of those interviewed, 89% reported that the presenteeist behavior accompanies constant headaches and muscle pain , with which they have been living on a daily basis.
Still, 86% of workers reported having problems with anxiety and 81% said they were often distressed.
Also according to ISMA-BR, about 23% of the adult population is presentee . And this percentage reaches 35% when we talk about the industrial sector.
Faced with these numbers, you may be wondering: after all, if people are so unhappy with their work, why don’t they quit?
Interestingly, the reason for his permanence is the same as the reason for his absent presence: stress.
They are often terrified of the possibility of losing their job , at the same time they are discouraged at the prospect of staying there indefinitely.
It’s not easy to throw everything away in search of personal satisfaction.
And this gets even more complicated in times of recession and economic crisis.
According to the president of ISMA-BR, in an interview with GaúchaZH , the presenter finds himself with no way out and may start abusing alcohol and drugs prescribed to anesthetize himself.
For the company, the losses of having a sick worker on its team are great, since there is a loss in productivity that is difficult to even measure.
How To Identify Presenteeism?
You may have already noticed that presenteeism has a lot to do with a company’s organizational culture – and this gives us clues as to what could be wrong.
One of the first signs to identify presenteeism in the corporate environment is the presence of basic errors in day-to-day production .
If the employee starts to miss simple tasks that he has always completed with mastery, this can point to low engagement with work.
This lack of engagement, by the way, can also be seen in changes in interpersonal relationships, in conversations with colleagues and in work meetings.
If an extroverted employee starts to shut up more often, not giving opinions and accepting everything with indifference, this should be a red flag for the manager.
A sudden drop in productivity , reducing the amount of work delivered daily, can also be an indication that that person spends their days “diluting” work so that they need to make as little effort as possible during their journey.
Productivity issues, however, can also be masked by a quantitative increase, but that does not translate into quality.
If the team starts to deliver a much larger amount of work, but, in order to do so, ends up sacrificing the quality standard established by the organization, the alert is also lit.
This can mean that the team is working without paying attention to what is being done, operating on what we usually call “autopilot”.
How To Avoid Presenteeism In Companies?
3 steps to avoid presenteeism
This is a very subtle and delicate situation to identify. It can last up to years if leaders do not pay proper attention to their employees. Reduction in productivity, lack of contact with other team members, or the recurrence of errors that did not happen before are serious indicators.
1-focus on communication
Presenteeism is much more common than people believe. Stress and a busy routine can kill employees’ motivation and, naturally, they pay less attention to the processes carried out.
In this sense, it is essential to cultivate a notion of group . With employees having some identification with each other, it becomes easier to understand what their role in the business is and facilitates the improvement of motivation.
2-Create a feedback culture
The biggest reason cases of presenteeism go unnoticed is that employees and leaders are not directly connected. That is, there is no feedback to understand how the work is being done and what improvements are needed.
In this scenario, the employee may feel that their work is great, so they don’t need to pay so much attention. Or on the other end, believing you’re not being noticed, and losing interest. And even worse: he can believe that the company doesn’t care about him, about his opinions.
The feedback culture is a way of clearly communicating what is expected of each person. With the simple habit of communicating these issues, the leader starts to pay more attention to the processes carried out by each one, identifying problematic situations before they become chronic.
3-Adopt a goal system
Every successful company has a well-defined long-term goal. However, this purpose is very abstract, and goals are a way to make it tangible.
When your employee knows the deadlines for each task to be carried out, he feels encouraged to pursue the results. Otherwise, there is no reason to worry or create a priority list.
If these goals are not met, leaders can get to the root of the problem quickly.
Impacts Of Presenteeism On Companies
Presenteeism generates impacts not only on the employee’s quality of life, as already highlighted.
It also hinders the smooth running of the company.
The first point that can appear when there are many disengaged employees is a drop in profitability rates .
The employee who is affected by presenteeism ends up delivering insufficient or incomplete work, which can lead to reworks, product recalls and even loss of customers who were previously loyal.
According to a survey by ISMA-BR, presenteeism causes losses of up to US$ 42 billion – and that’s just for Brazilian companies.
In addition to the direct damage caused by the drop in productivity, organizations also suffer from poorly distributed investments , since payroll expenses are not reflected in productivity gains.
This result ends up making the manager question all his hiring choices, as he gets the general impression that he is being cheated by his team.
As a consequence, of course, the idea of a healthy organizational climate is undermined.
Another impact of presenteeism on companies is high staff turnover , with constant layoffs causing the team to be in deficit, one way or another.
This is because, ultimately, the employee who no longer sees any reason to continue in the company ends up leaving and looking for an opportunity that better fits his needs.
All these unpleasant situations still generate physical and emotional wear on the entire team , even on those who were not affected by presenteeism originally.
This happens because, when an employee is unable to fulfill his obligations, he burdens everyone else.
In addition to generating an imbalance in the workload, which in itself is already a stress factor, this movement ends up giving rise to friction between people.
While employees end up resenting each other, precisely because of the functions they need to accumulate, the relationship with the company is also shaken.
When having to fulfill tasks beyond those for which they were hired, professionals will inevitably feel exploited.
And there begins a new discontent, like a snowball.
Types Of Presenteeism
It is important to say that not every type of presenteeism starts for the same reasons or manifests itself in the same way.
One of the most perverse types, the one motivated by illness , is usually accompanied by the worker’s enormous fear of losing that job , either because of the social or economic damage that this would entail.
These people end up withdrawing from the work environment and performing their activities in an unsatisfactory way because they suffer from some illness or physical condition.
Most of the time, this worker recognizes that his productivity is not ideal, but he is also afraid to seek medical care , because he believes that this would be a sign of weakness.
Or, simply, they are afraid of being absent for treatment, because they believe that, if they do, they run the risk of being replaced at the company.
Not infrequently, the illness from which the employee suffers comes precisely from a bad organizational climate, with work overload, intrigue and other factors already reported.
This type of situation of high and continuous stress can end up causing a pathology, the so-called Burnout Syndrome.
Exhausted by the conditions of the work environment, he is now also sick, and he has a new barrier that prevents him from giving himself to his duties.
There are even cases where psychosocial factors outside the company lead to presenteeism.
Problems with family, friends, love life or finances can interfere with a worker’s productivity, albeit occasionally.
The way in which the employee will express his presenteeism may vary, but it is not necessarily directly related to his motivation.
There are those who will start not delivering all the tasks for which they were requested within the deadline, which will lead to more and more accumulated work .
Some will even show that they are working more, with overtime that does not translate into an effective increase in productivity.
The rush to leave is yet another feature common to presenters, who spend the day working on autopilot and can’t wait to get home.
What Is Absenteeism?
In research on presenteeism, you are likely to come across another term related to the corporate environment and employees: absenteeism .
This term encompasses all situations in which the employee is absent from work in an unjustified way , except in cases of pregnancy and scheduled vacations.
Absenteeists are people who, due to being sick, unmotivated, stressed or having some friction at work, end up absent from their job.
These are cases that tend to be less problematic for companies, because they have the opportunity to put someone else in the position of the missing worker, either a temporary or permanent replacement .
In presenteeism, the employee’s attendance does not give the company the opportunity to seek an easy solution, since his physical presence is an indication that he will produce – and this is not always the case.
In everyday life, employees who suffer from presenteeism will never be able to fully dedicate themselves to their tasks, which leads to increasingly frequent errors due to lack of attention.
In addition to not being able to carry out their activities with praise, this worker is not able to contribute to the company’s growth, thinking of creative and innovative solutions to productivity issues.
Its performance will be summarized as a mechanical work , without any involvement and lacking any critical sense that is able to help in the evolution of the products and services that are being created there.
