Presenteeism Prevails

A recent article in BBC Worklife caught my eye when it raised this issue. Despite many workers getting what they asked for in terms of flexibility, autonomy, and remote working, one thing that hasn’t gone away is presenteeism.

The article describes the situation.

“Before the pandemic, presenteeism – a compulsion, often performative, to work long hours and be available around the clock even when unwell or unproductive – was a common part of the culture of many organisations. This has been particularly the case across industries including finance, consulting and tech, where bosses have historically expected to see long hours from their workers, even when it’s not quantifiably tied to output.

Despite so many workplace-culture changes, evidence suggests that not only is presenteeism still entrenched – but it may also be getting worse.”

Definitions

There appear to be two definitions of presenteeism at play here. The first is when people work despite feeling unwell, which results in a drop in productivity and potentially making their condition worse. This is how the World Health Organisation defines it.

“Presenteeism refers to being at work when one's health condition impairs their ability to perform their job effectively."

The other definition coming into play is employees being present and not necessarily productive – not due to physical or mental issues – but to appear “always on.” These employees engage in long hours of ”work” to create the perception of productivity and to gain favour from their bosses, which in turn leads to burnout and reduced work-life balance.

The phenomenon is fuelled by bosses who still believe that if they can see employees active for 8 hours or more, they must be productive. The longer hours they work, the more productive they must be. I call this a phenomenon because it is a situation we know exists, but the cause or explanation is in question. It still dumbfounds me that a supposedly intelligent human overseeing a team in the workplace still believes that hours spent at a desk equate to productivity.

There are several ways we can work to eliminate presenteeism which I want to explore in this newsletter.

Leadership

This is at the crux of the matter – poor leadership. We need leaders who are comfortable providing empowerment and autonomy to their employees and allowing them to get on with the job at hand.

These leaders know that performance should be based on output and not input i.e., the hours spend at a desk. Performance is measured by outcomes that add value.

Back in January, I wrote an article called ”Resolution or Resolve” in which I challenged my readers to resolve to improve the way in which employee performance is measured.

“Anyone can make a resolution. Not everyone has resolve.

If you resolve to do one thing this year – this, is it.

Improve the way you measure employee performance, especially in the world of remote work.

According to GetApp, more than 40% of newly remote workers say their employer hasn’t changed how their performance is measured - adding further strain to an already disjointed process.

Even before the pandemic, less than one in five HR leaders believed that performance management was effective at achieving its objective according to Gartner. This must be a concern. If the process was broken before the pandemic, failure to act now will destroy it. Leaders must have the resolve to change how they handle the performance management of a remote workforce. If they don’t, trust will disintegrate, employee engagement will fall, and employees will walk out of the door.”

When employees are measured for the right things, they know that they do not have to be “always on.”

Sick leave

If your organisation has a policy that allows you sick leave, then you are entitled to use it when you are unwell.

If you have a boss who makes you feel uncomfortable taking sick leave then they are the problem, not you.

As Nola Simon, Hybrid/Remote Work Expert said on LinkedIn recenty:
“It’s not absenteeism.
It’s using the benefit you’ve been provided. That benefit is available regardless of whether you work in the office or at home or at a third location like a coworking space.
Don’t feel like you are less entitled to be sick because you have flexibility.
This is the type of culture problem that erodes trust and contributes to burnout.”

When employees are encouraged to take sick leave when they need it, presenteeism will diminish.

Trust

Following on from leadership is the eroding matter of trust. This is a two-way street. There are bosses who do not trust their employees to be productive if they are out of sight. This has been termed by Microsoft as Productivity Paranoia. In 2022, Microsoft conducted a global hybrid trend study and found an alarming disconnect in the way top leaders and employees. They surveyed 20,000 people in 11 countries and analysed trillions of Microsoft 365 productivity signals, along with LinkedIn labour trends and Glint People Science findings.

Most employees (87%) reported that they were productive at work. At the same time, 85% of leaders said that the shift to hybrid work had made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive.

This has led employers to invest in employee surveillance software monitoring activity rather than impact. Top10VPN has been monitoring the global demand for employee surveillance software since March 2020. In March 2020 the demand increased by 75% compared with the 2019 monthly average. The condemning fact is that the demand has continued to rise ever since.

As the graph from Top10VPN shows, there has been a sustained increase in demand following the initial spike in March 2020.

This is employers screaming at employees, “I do not trust you.”

This must stop. Research shows that when employers monitor an employee’s every move, they signal distrust, which can lead to employee disengagement. Disengaged employees are less productive.

A lack of trust leads to presenteeism.

The trust goes the other way too. Employees do not trust their employer to value them for their contributions or achievements if they are not always on. They feel they must be excessively present never allowing the keyboard to become inactive or the green “Available” light on Teams or Skype to turn yellow 

Protocols

There must be clear and consistent communication protocols. All because my boss works until 10 pm in the evening, does not mean that I must respond to emails he/she sends at that time. When there is no guidance, it sets expectations and presenteeism prevails.

There must be clear guidance on when to use synchronous and asynchronous communication and the channels clearly defined. Synchronous communications are scheduled, real-time interactions by phone, instant messaging, video, or in person.  Asynchronous communication happens on your own time and doesn’t need scheduling.

As I said in a recent newsletter:

“At many organisations such as GitLab, asynchronous communication is the default. Employees use email, project management tools (e.g., Trello, Asana), workspaces (e.g., Confluence, Slack), and direct messaging (e.g., WhatsApp, Twitter) but do not expect an immediate response. There is a lag between when someone sends a message and when the party receiving the message interprets it. This is ideal for when the message is not urgent, and the receiver can consume the communication at their own pace. It may be the only way for employees with different time zones to communicate effectively without sacrificing their personal time outside of working hours.”

Set expectations around each communication channel e.g., email, messaging, collaboration channels etc. regarding the expected response time. For example, never use email for urgent matters. Use SMS when a matter is urgent. Do not phone a colleague outside these hours - xx:xx – xx:xx - unless your matter is urgent.

A wrote recently about how there can be a blur between professional and personal life in a remote working content when these protocols are not in place.

Protocols will be different for each organisation. and possibly for each team within it but having them prevents presenteeism.

Boundaries

I also advise employees to create boundaries for themselves between their professional and personal life when working from home.

Working from home means you do not have the closure of the working day as you did when you worked in an office. There is no packing up the desk, leaving the building, getting on a train and heading home. When you opened your front door, for the most time, that was personal time.

If you are lucky enough to have a purpose-built office as I do, it is easier to set those boundaries. When I close the door, I mentally end my working day.

If you do not have a dedicated office or working space, you can still set those boundaries if you are intentional about it. Let’s say your working space is at the end of your kitchen bench. When you open your computer and log on to work, it is the professional part of the day. When you log off from work and close your computer. Imagine you are closing a door and ending your professional day. Make that space sacrosanct to work. If you need to use your computer for personal business, move it away from the dedicated “work” space. This mindset shift helps prevent us from thinking at 8 pm, “Oh I will just log in and check if there are any emails for me.” Mind you, if we have the protocols in place, we should not even be thinking that.

Fear

The final piece of the presenteeism puzzle to fix is the fear that working remotely will have a detrimental impact on your career progression. As I have already said, many remote workers believe that their boss will not think they are performing if they cannot see them. Therefore, this presenteeism takes the form of attending the office when there is absolutely no need to and often the work undertaken was more suited to a remote environment than to an office environment.

Employees put up with an unnecessary, expensive and arduous commute, just to be present and visible to the boss.

The Unispace 2023 survey “Returning For Good” across 9,5000 employees, 6,650 employers, and 17 countries worldwide, found 84% of employers indicated that the chance to progress in their role will be limited for those employees who are not in the office.

When bosses are not capable of measuring the right things but also not capable of leading a distributed workforce in which everyone feels included and treated equitably, regardless of where they work, employees will be disgruntled that they have been given the option to work remotely but is has a detrimental impact on their perceived performance. The option is therefore not a viable one. 

Employees' mental well-being will be impacted, they will be disengaged and actively looking for an employer with a proven approach to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) that encompasses all workers regardless of their location.

We must remember that work is what we do, not where we go.