Positive and negative effects of sickness presenteeism on worker health and performanc

The aim of this research will be to develop a comprehensive understanding of the positive and negative effects of sickness presenteeism (or attending work while sick) on worker health and performance. Our own preliminary research (Karanika-Murray & Biron, under review; Karanika-Murray, Pontes, Griffiths, & Biron, 2015) suggests that despite predominantly negative effects (such as reduced performance, sickness absenteeism and cardiovascular disease even two years later), presenteeism can also have positive effects (such as better workload management, commitment, and improved teamwork). The combination of extremely high prevalence and costs to individual health render a comprehensive understanding of presenteeism needed and timely.

Sickness presenteeism, or working while sick, can cost UK employers over £15 billion annually and up to 10 times more than sickness absenteeism. It is linked to future sickness absence and higher prevalence of coronary heart disease even after two years, leading to a downward spiral of future ill-health and sickness absenteeism. Workers who attend work whilst ill more than six times in a year prior have a 74% higher risk of sickness absence of more than two months the following year. Furthermore, presenteeism can lead to contagion of illness and future sickness absenteeism among colleagues. Presenteeism is prevalent across a range of sectors and types of jobs with up to 73% of the workforce attending work when they should be recovering from illness. Presenteeism is both pervasive and costly to the population’s health and the economy.

Despite this evidence, counterintuitively, there are suggestions that presenteeism can also have positive effects on health and productivity. Engagement with work even during illness can support gradual return to work and in this way help to reduce future sickness absence, manage workload accumulation, and maintain some level of productivity and positive working relationships. Current understanding of the positive and negative effects of presenteeism on worker health and performance, in the short and long term, is weak. For example, it is likely that positive short-term effects on health and performance do not prevent negative long-term impact on health. Our preliminary critical review of the predictors and outcomes of presenteeism sketches a complex and perplexing picture.

This project will take a comprehensive approach to cover acute and chronic health problems, mental and physical health, and performance and productivity, in both the short and the long-term. This research is likely to involve a multilevel (a combination of employee, team, workplace), interdisciplinary (informed by psychology, management, occupational health), and mixed-method (possibly a combination of secondary data analysis, primary research, and intervention research) approach. This will allow to understand the complex interactions among health and performance for the individual and their organization and over time. The detailed methodology will be developed with the candidate. Therefore, candidates are will be invited and encouraged to use their own methodological expertise to develop the appropriate methodology with the supervision team. This is an excellent opportunity to develop research skills and a strong publication track record in this area, and at the same time help to develop needed knowledge in this important but under-researched field.


Specific qualifications/subject areas required of the applicants for this project (e.g. First degree in specific subject area):

UK 1st Class / 2.1 Bachelor’s degree (or UK equivalent according to NARIC) and a postgraduate degree in occupational psychology, management, or cognate areas.