Courtesy navigation

News

October 16, 2015

Employers report rise in "presenteeism"

Employers report rise in "presenteeism"The number of firms reporting that sick staff are coming into work has increased for the fifth year in a row.

One in three employers (31%) have reported an increase in staff coming to work while they are ill, according to the findings of the CIPD Absence Management Survey 2015.

However, 56% of survey respondents admitted that they hadn't taken any steps to discourage this kind of behaviour. There is little change in the level of overall sickness absence, up to 6.9 days in 2015 from 6.6 days in 2014.

The survey of 600 employers, conducted in partnership with Simply Health, found that presenteeism is more likely to occur in organisations where long working hours are the norm and operational demands take precedence over employee wellbeing.

Employers who report an increase in presenteeism are nearly twice as likely to also report an increase in stress-related absence.

Ben Willmott, head of public policy at the HR body CIPD, said: "It's a real concern that the problem of presenteeism is persisting. The message to businesses is clear: if you want your workforce to work well, you have to take steps to keep them well and this means putting employee health above operational demands."

This year, the report also revealed a sharp rise in the number of days lost to "illegitimate" absence, up from 3% in 2014 to 14% in 2015.

Jill Miller, research adviser at the CIPD and co-author of the report, said some people may be "pulling sickies" due to conflicting demands from home and work. She said organisations offering flexible working and leave for family circumstances were less likely to report these types of absence.

Also this week, a survey has highlighted the extent to which staff are likely to ignore their health because of work pressures. MedExpress polled over 2,000 full-time employees aged 18-65 and found that the top three sectors where employees are most likely to put their job first over their health are: marketing and media (14%); construction (8%) and food and hospitality (8%).

More on this topic: