Presenteeism remains a significant problem in the UK workforce, study suggests

Although time and attendance and workforce management and monitoring systems can provide extensive actionable data regarding the employees’ sickness absences, they still can’t fully mitigate the undesired effects of presenteeism, a persisting problem in the UK workforce, according to research from Canada Life Group.

Almost all (90%) employees said they come into work when feeling unwell, virtually unchanged from the 89% who said this last year, the study revealed. Furthermore, the poll found that presenteeism is most commonly driven by high workloads, with more than a quarter (28%) feeling their workload is too great to call in sick. Financial concerns (21%) and feeling guilty for taking time off (17%) were also common factors.

Employees said they feared they would be thought of as lazy (16%), weak (14%), or inconsiderate (14%) if they took time off for illness. Just 22% of respondents thought this decision would be viewed as sensible.

When it comes to the illnesses people were willing to come into work with, more than half (54%) said they would still come in if they had the flu. More than two in five (42%) would come into work if they had a stomach virus, despite having symptoms of sickness and diarrhoea. Almost a quarter (23%) would only call in sick if they were hospitalised or had no other choice.

Tensor Time and Attendance Systems – monitoring and reporting on employees’ sickness absence trends

A top-range time and attendance monitoring system can easily determine the best strategies to tackle the problem of excessive presenteeism and determine employers to set comprehensive policies to support employers in dealing with sickness absence.

The Tensor WinTA.NET integrated time and attendance system and workforce management solution incorporates a dedicated Absence Planning and Entitlement Management feature. It comes pre-loaded with graphical calendar charts that provide a colourful way of viewing an individual’s or a department’s absence records.

Each employee can be allocated different entitlements for absence such as annual leave or allowed sickness. As absence is booked and taken, the remainder available for each entitlement is updated. Entitlement formulae are used to calculate more complex entitlements calculated on a rising scale based upon length of service.

If you’d like to find out more about the Tensor workforce management solutions, just contact our team or Book a Demo, we’ll be more than happy to answer all of your questions and queries.