New study finds working while sick actually harms productivity and retention

By: Cassidy Delamarter, University Communications and Marketing

Have you ever dragged yourself to work when you were feeling sick because you felt you had no other choice? You’re not alone. A new study from the University of South Florida reveals that it’s not just personal drive pushing employees to work while under the weather, but a hidden pressure from workplace culture.

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Claire Smith, USF assistant professor of psychology, has dubbed these workplace cultures “presenteeism pressure” in her recent study published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. The study highlights how organizations unknowingly encourage employees to power through physical or mental illness, potentially leading to long-term negative effects on both health and productivity.

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“Many organizations are putting pressure on employees to show up to work no matter what, and they aren’t fully aware that presenteeism is usually more costly over the long-term compared to absenteeism,” Smith said.

To explore this phenomenon, Smith developed the Presenteeism Pressure Scale through a multi-phase study involving four samples of nearly 1,600 working adults. The scale provides a validated measure that companies and researchers can use to assess employees’ perceptions of organizational pressure to engage in presenteeism.

The results confirmed that presenteeism pressure significantly shapes employees’ attendance behaviors, while simultaneously impacting workplace health and organizational success.

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When employees feel presenteeism pressure, they start to see the organization in a negative light – interpreting it as a lack of care for their well-being, leading to lower satisfaction and greater intent to leave the organization. According to Harvard Business Review, the pressure to work while sick costs companies as much as $150 billion annually due to lost productivity and increased deviant behaviors, such as theft and mistreatment of coworkers.

Smith said employers should consider revisiting strict or controlling attendance policies and “always there” norms to ensure presenteeism is not the default expectation. Doing so would be mutually beneficial for both the company and its employees by improving employee health and organizational function. With the Presenteeism Pressure Scale as a tool, companies can measure and manage these influences, striving to create healthier, more productive workplaces. In the future, Smith plans to expand this research to examine unique experiences of presenteeism pressure for remote workers.

“We have a new workforce post-pandemic that is really aware of and interested in their health and work-life balance, so I do think creating healthier, more productive workplaces is going to become more and more important,” Smith said.

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