Most people know about the impact mental and physical health can have on absenteeism (i.e., being off work due to ill-health) and the associated effect this has on productivity.

People are less familiar with presenteeism – that’s where you go to work with mental or physical health problems and don’t function to the full extent of your ability

• Hidden cost as difficult to spot

• 25% of the 8500 people we surveyed said they had experienced presenteeism in the past month

• Impact on their work is, on average, working 33% below best possible performance

• Cost of $2000 per month per employee (based on average salary estimates)

• More than $46billion cost per annum to NZ if extrapolate that across all orgs – note that this is an estimate and we need more research

• Lower productivity can be due to:

• • Being distracted

• • Low energy levels

• • Can’t focus on goals

• • Unable to finish tasks

• Interestingly 4 types of presenteeism:

• • Dysfunctional (described above)

• • Overachieving -where you work really hard to make up for it, but increase your chances of burning out

• • Functional – everyone is aware that you’re not operating at 100% but manager has altered workload to help in the short-term and you build back up to full capacity

• • Therapeutic – performing less than usual, possibly due to long-term condition, but it’s good for you to be at work

• This is an emerging area for many businesses, so raising awareness is key and understanding potential impact on productivity

• Need further research in NZ as little studied

• Would want to move to a position where employees feel they can take time off if they need it to recover rather than returning to work

• And, having workplaces where these sort of issues can be discussed openly without fear of retribution and employee and manager can work together to structure workload to help recovery and return to full productivity quicker.