How the 'Walking Wounded' Hurt Productivity
Are your workers at their desks -- but not doing much? If so, your team could be suffering from presenteeism.
Have you heard the term before? I hadn't, despite the fact it's been circulating for some time. It refers to workers who come to work despite being ill, usually due to concerns about a loss of income or employment. Sometimes employees work sick because there's a deadline or an expectation that they need to be in the office regardless of the circumstances.
But these "presentees" pose a big problem. They're not operating at full strength, so their productivity won't be great (ditto for morale). And if they're contagious, they can bring an entire department -- or even a full workplace -- to its knees.
That's a concern made even more compelling by the swine flu situation, says Kevin Jones; that outbreak is likely to verify the reality of presenteeism.
Presenteeism can cause major financial impact on an organization, according to an Idaho Business Review article ("All Present but Work Not Accounted For"):
"(W)orkers who are on the job but just taking up space cost companies an estimated $150 billion a year, far outstripping the other big productivity killer, absenteeism."That data is from a 2004 Harvard Business Review article. A different study, by the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, put the combined cost of absenteeism and presenteeism at $36 billion. No matter which number you like, that's a lot of lost productivity.
What can you do to combat presenteeism? Some suggestions:
- If one of your team members is clearly impaired, send him home.
- Educate your employees. Explain to them what conditions require them to stay home, and when they may return.
- Offer paid sick leave, if you don't already. That'll make it less likely that economic concerns will send a flu-riddled employee into the office.
- Balance your approach about sick days. While it's common for employers to take measures to discourage the abuse of sick days, you're really shooting yourself in the foot if the end result is that truly ill workers come into the office.
- You may need to consider punitive action against a worker who comes in sick despite your regulations, especially if he's in a public-facing situation. Patricia Schaefer in Business Know-How describes how a sick food-service worker infected more than 400 customers, whose symptoms included vomiting and uncontrollable diarrhea.
- Offer flexible working options. A sick worker toiling from home is better for your bottom line than someone sneezing at her desk.
(image by Leonid Mamchenkov via Flickr, CC 2.0)