Have you ever said this to your collaborators? If the answer is yes, congratulations — you are falling into one of the traps of today's work culture known as Presenteeism. Workplace presenteeism is simply "being at work just to be there" — in short, without being productive.
How do we detect if someone is suffering from workplace presenteeism?
Very simply. They say "you know a tree by its fruit." In this case, our collaborators' behavior is what will reveal this practice. Let us list 5 behavioral signs that your collaborators are suffering from workplace presenteeism:
- Delaying or dragging out the completion of assigned tasks: Has it ever happened that a task calculated for 1–2 hours ends up taking 8 hours? Sometimes it may be an isolated incident, but if it happens frequently, presenteeism is almost certainly occurring.
- Staying longer than the work shift: Believe it or not, this can be a sign of workplace presenteeism. The collaborator stays extra time only to appear to have "impeccable dedication" — but have you asked yourself why they didn't finish their work during regular hours?
- Spending work hours on unrelated tasks: Have you noticed an employee spending their time "helping" someone else with their work, or doing online shopping during work hours? This is also a sign of workplace presenteeism.
- Coming to work sick or with serious health problems: A worker coming to work in poor health will not help tasks or objectives be met. They're only doing it "to be a good employee," putting their own health and that of their coworkers at risk — which will ultimately cost the company more.
- Complaining about having too much work when the workload hasn't actually increased.
Perhaps you are now asking yourself: Why are my collaborators like this? The answer may lie within your organization. The first step to solving a problem is recognizing it exists. Below are some causes of this problem along with proposed solutions:
- Cause: Work cultures that reward the time employees spend on premises rather than results — through phrases like "look how dedicated they are" and comparisons based on office time rather than objectives.
- Solution: Incentivize and recognize your collaborators for goals achieved, not for time spent in the office. Implement objective-based policies.
- Cause: Excessive or disproportionate workload. When a collaborator feels overloaded, they may start extending delivery dates as a form of resistance — fearing that finishing will only bring more work.
- Solution: Balance the workload in your organization by having a clear understanding of processes and timelines, and communicate this to collaborators from the start.
- Cause: Fear of termination. During periods of high turnover, collaborators may start performing "very hard work" as a show — actually faking productivity — which can reduce actual output.
- Solution: Promote transparency in your organization so collaborators do not fall into imagining non-existent crises.
- Cause: Lack of motivation. If there is no clear vision behind why your collaborators do what they do, or if they don't feel their work is properly valued, they become demotivated.
- Solution: Value and motivate your collaborators — not only economically, but also emotionally. We will discuss emotional salary in future articles.
- Cause: Setting unattainable goals. Companies that offer fabulous bonuses with humanly impossible targets demotivate everyone and create deep frustration.
- Solution: Do not dangle a carrot on a string in front of your collaborators. In today's information age, people see through it quickly.
Do you know any other causes? Share them in the comments and let's have a healthy debate.
Some consequences of presenteeism include:
- Decline in the quality of delivered work.
- Results well below average in time and form.
- High employee turnover.
- Heavy, oppressive work environments.
- Increased work-related stress.
- Higher incidence of workplace conflicts.
- Lack of a sense of belonging to the organization.
- Increase in workplace accidents.
- Higher expenses and inefficient use of resources.