Abstract
Sickness presenteeism involves employees continuing to work while unwell. As presenteeism is influenced by contextual and individual difference factors, it is important to assess its prevalence and implications for wellbeing and productivity in different occupational groups. This study examines these issues in a sample of prison officers working in UK institutions. Data were obtained from a survey of 1956 prison officers. Measures assessed the prevalence of and reasons for presenteeism and the perceived impact on job performance, along with mental health and perceptions of workplace safety climate. More than nine respondents out of ten (92%) reported working while unwell at least sometimes, with 43% reporting that they always did so. Presenteeism frequency was significantly related to mental health symptoms, impaired job performance and a poorer workplace safety climate. The reasons provided for presenteeism explained 31% of the variance in self-reported mental health, 34% in job performance and 17% in workplace safety climate, but the pattern of predictors varied according to the outcome. The findings can be used to inform interventions at the organisational and individual levels to encourage a ‘healthier’ approach to sickness absence, with likely benefits for staff wellbeing, job performance and workplace safety climate.
Highlights
Presenteeism refers to situations where people continue to work despite feeling sufficiently unwell to take time off sick [1]
This study examined the extent to which UK prison officers work while unwell, why they do so and the implications for their mental health, job performance and perceptions of the workplace safety climate
The findings confirm that presenteeism is commonplace among prison officers for several reasons that encompass aspects of the job itself, the organisation and the individual
Summary
Presenteeism refers to situations where people continue to work despite feeling sufficiently unwell to take time off sick [1]. Such behaviour is commonplace, with a recent study of UK employees reporting that nearly nine out of ten (88%) had continued to attend work while experiencing illness [2] and another estimating that 1.5 working days are lost due to presenteeism for every one day lost to absenteeism [3]. Biron [7] that identifies four aspects of presenteeism: functional (working during illness without further taxing one’s wellbeing); dysfunctional (where presenteeism causes a deterioration in health and performance); over-achieving (a drive to continue working due to over-commitment) and therapeutic (enabling rehabilitation and recovery from illness). Several reviews have highlighted the wide-ranging negative implications of working during sickness [4,5,8,9]
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