PRESENTEEISM: REASONS, CREATED ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEMS AND SOLUTION SUGGESTIONS A LITERATURE REVIEW

Yıl 2012, Cilt: 12 Sayı: 23, 157 - 178, 01.06.2012

Ömer Çoban Serhat Harman

Öz

Presenteeism refers productivity losses depending on employees being at work despite
health problems. In this study, a literature review which covers previous studies (between
years 1998 and 2008) about presenteeism was conducted. After reviewing literature, 28
full-text articles were reached. These studies can be listed as; Cooper (1998), Burton et.
all (1999), Lowe (2002), Hemp (2004), Lamers et. all (2005), Rogerson (2005), Dew et.
all (2005), Meerding et. all (2005), Cullen et. all (2006), Saarvala (2006), Firns et. all
(2006), Caverly et. all (2007), D’abate et. all (2007), Schultz ve Edington (2007),
Sanderson et. all (2007), Munir et. all (2008) Yamashita et. all (2008), Hansen et. all
(2008), Pauly et. all (2008).
After analyzing the content of 28 articles, findings indicate there are two general
tendencies in defining the presenteeism. According to first tendency, presenteeism occurs
when employees overwork or at least stay at work for long hours because of various
pressures. On the other hand, in the second tendency presenteeism describes employees
going to work despite their health problems or illnesses. It can be said that the amount of
productivity lost costs due to presenteeism are much more than the absenteeism costs.
There are various factors that causes presenteeism, firstly work-related and psychological
pressures such as fear of job lost, downsizing, re-organization of company, increased
importance of self-achievement, fear of losing career opportunities, strict attendance
policies and high level of competition. Secondly, some health problems and illnesses can
cause presenteeism such as flues, hiper and low tension, headaches, migraines, allergies,
depression, mental disorders, asthmas, gastrointestinal problems and asthma/breathing
difficulties, sleeplessness, high cholesterol, diabetes, stress and also pregnancy.
According to some studies (for example, Hansen et. all, 2008) nearly 70 percent of
employees face presenteeism once in a year. Because of high existence level of
presenteeism in the work life, presenteeism causes major problems both for employers
and employees. When we examine major problems that employers face, there is no doubt;
productivity lost is the main result of presenteeism. If productivity decreases in
corporations then costs increase.
It can be said that if there is existence of presenteeism in the workplace, lack of
communication occurs between employer and employees. One of the other major problem
which caused by presenteeism is inefficiency in time management in workplace. On the
other side, the main problem which employees face is increased health risk. For example,
if an employee goes to work despite his or her health problem, his or her health problem
will became worse so employee will face bigger health problems. Going work despite
health problems is not only risky for employee, but also for his or her colleagues because
of probability of spreading illness to them. Especially, risk of spreading illness is much
more serious in service industry. Because face to face interaction between employees and
customers is higher than any other industries. So employers in service industry must be
more sensitive about their employees health.
To prevent presenteeism, there are some precautions need to be taken in the
workplace. These precautions can be divided into three categories such as, precautions
needs to be taken by business owners, by human resource managers and by employees.
First category covers precautions such as setting more democratic management culture in
the organization, paying for all the days even if the employees cannot come because of their health problems, improving payments for health incentives, employing a health staff
or company doctor in the workplace. Second category covers precautions such as,
implementing surveys about job satisfaction and job related stress, scheduling flexible
working hours, developing health programs for employees, developing training programs
for sick or injured employees. Lastly, there are also some precautions need to be
considered by employees. These precautions includes arranging a good home-work
balance, carrying out regular working time schedule (especially for the employees who
work home-office style), planning the working day correctly, determining low energy
working hours, setting regular sleeping hours, delimiting the duties just at work (not
taking job to home), having a well-balanced diet doing exercises and also knowing how to
reject and say “no” for some tasks. When these precautions are taken, the presence of
presenteeism can be reduced. But taking these precautions requires a good cooperation
among business owners, human resource managers and employees.
Presenteeism has received great amount of interest by scholars. There has been many
attemps to measure presenteeism by management and organization, human resources,
workplace health and occupational rehabilitation scholars. We can list measurement
instruments about presenteeism (Schultz ve Edington, 2007: 549-550) as Stanford
Presenteeism Scale (SPS), Work Limitations Questionnaire (WLQ), American
Productivity Audit (APA), Endicott Work Productivity Scale, Health and Labor
Questionnaire (HLQ), Work Productivity & Activity Impairment Questionnaire (WPAI),
Health and Work Performance Questionnaire (HPQ) and Work Productivity Short
Inventory (WPSI).
Our literature view indicates presenteeism as a global phenomenon. Thus, it is
impossible to assert that presenteeism does not exist in Turkish organizations due to lack
of empirical support about the existence of presenteeism in Turkish organizations. So
employees working in low levels can feel themselves must go work even they have health
problems or they are injured. Also, due to the limited number of studies about
presenteeism, the term presenteeism does not have a corresponding term in Turkish
language, Therefore forthcoming congresses or academic meetings will display a major
role in translating the term into Turkish Language and growing interest of Turkish
academics working in management and organization and human resources fields.
The study ends up with some suggestions for future researches about presenteeism in
Turkish organizations. Outsourcing applications augment labour market more insecure
especially for low employees. Because it can be said that most of studies about
preseteeism were held in developed countries such as United States of America, Canada,
Japan, Sweden and the other European countries. So, it is beneficial to examine the
presence of presenteeism in a developing country. Thus, it is no doubt; there is a need for
empirical studies about presenteeism in Turkey. Empirical studies in the future should
cover employers’ attitudes to presenteeism. Also, there should be researches examining
differences in terms of presenteeism between full time employees and home-office
working employees. In addition, there are major differences in job security between
public and private sectors. So, occurrence of presenteeism in public and private sectors
should be examined in the future too.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Presenteeism, employee productivity, absenteeism, solution suggestions

PRESENTEEISM: NEDENLERİ, YARATTIĞI ÖRGÜTSEL SORUNLAR VE ÇÖZÜM ÖNERİLERİ ÜZERİNE BİR ALANYAZIN TARAMASI

Öz

Presenteeism, işgörenin rahatsızlığı bulunmasına rağmen işe gitmesini ve bu durumdan kaynaklanan verimlilik kayıplarını ifade etmektedir. Türkiye’de presenteeism ile ilgili görgül çalışma sayısı yok denecek kadar azdır. Bu nedenle, presenteeism kavramı ile ilgili daha önce yapılmış çalışmaların incelendiği alanyazın taraması niteliğinde nitel bir çalışma gerçekleştirilmiştir. Yapılan alanyazın taraması sonucunda 28 adet tam metin çalışmaya ulaşılmıştır. 28 adet çalışmanın incelenmesinin ardından elde edilen bulgulardan; presenteeism kavramın tanımı konusunda iki genel eğilimin olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. İlk eğilimde presenteeism daha çok, işgörenlerin çeşitli baskılar nedeniyle çok uzun saatler çalışması veya en azından uzun süre ile işyerinde bulunmaları olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. İkinci eğilimde ise presenteeism konusunda işgörenin işe gitmesini engelleyecek hastalıkları veya sağlık problemlerinin olmasına rağmen işyerine gitmelerine vurgu yapmaktadır. Öte yandan, presenteeismin nedenlerinin başında, işgörenin işini kaybetme korkusunun geldiği ve yarattığı en büyük sorunun ise yaşanan verimlilik kaybının olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. Çalışma, presenteeismin neden olduğu sorunların çözümüne ilişkin; işveren, insan kaynakları yöneticileri ve işgörenlere yönelik öneriler ile son bulmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Presenteeism, işgören verimliliği, örgütlerde devamsızlık, çözüm önerileri