“Vacation is what you take when you can’t take what you’ve been taking any longer.â€
Unknown
Have you ever gone to work when you were feeling less than 100 percent? Well, we have a new name for that–it is called “presenteeism” and is defined as showing up and not being at your peak ability to perform your job due to physical, emotional or cognitive challenges.
Have you ever not gone to work when you were feeling 100 percent? There is an old word for that–it is called “playing hooky” (“Hooky, also spelled “hookey”apparently developed from the phrase “hooky-crooky” common in the early 19th century, which meant “dishonest or underhanded”).
Employers have been rather clueless about the magnitude of their absenteeism problems although they realize whether someone is at work feeling “under the weather” or staying at home neither are adding much to the “corporate bottom line.”
The firm CCH in their 2007 Unscheduled Absence Survey discovered that only 34% of employees who call in sick do so because of true physical health problems. The other 66% are most likely dealing with child care, eldercare, or other family problems that require us to skip out of work for all or part of the day.
Unscheduled absenteeism has climbed to its highest level since 1999 and these absences cost some large employers more than $1 million a year, according to the CCH survey of 323 human-resources executives conducted last year. The survey found that unscheduled absenteeism cost employers $660 per employee per year on average last year, up from $610 the prior year.Â
What employers do know is that individuals who don’t practice healthy lifestyle behaviors are more likely to be a greater cost liability. For example:
- According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smokers cost the American business nearly $94 billion annually in lost productivity
- Overweight employees are absent, on average, 13 days more than healthy weight workers
- The National Business Group on Health reports that obese people have 30% to 50% more chronic medical problems than those who smoke or drink heavily
So employers today readily acknowledge that workers with lousy health habits are more likely to be out of the office. What they don’t seem to know is how many employees actually take a day off without really being physically ill.
To fight back, companies are now doing everything they can to make sure that you don’t play hooky. In a recent Marsh/Mercer Health and Benefits Survey, 20% of companies are limiting the actual number of days you can take for ACCEPTABLE absences; 39% are experimenting with paid-time off “banks” for employees to use when they need to; and 56% are now tracking unscheduled absences and using them in some capacity in an employee’s overall performance appraisal.
If you work at Wal-Mart, you now have to call a 1-800 phone number the day you want to play hooky or are legitimately sick instead of notifying their manager directly. Hopefully, Wal-Mart isn’t paying for each 1-800 call that comes in each day.
Using the most recently available data, the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO)Â has determined that the average Canadian, Australian, Japanese or Mexican worker works roughly 100 hours less than the average employee in the US does in a year (about 2.5 weeks less). Brazilians and British employees worked some 250 hours, or more than 5 weeks less than Americans. Germans worked roughly 500 hours, or 12.5 weeks less than their US counterparts.
All of us deserve a day to play “hooky” to energize our “battery” and step off the “big wheel of life” before we get flung off it….When is the last time you really played guilt-free “hooky” and went to bed with a great big smile on your face knowing you were able to spend one day doing some things that really excite your passions? Um-mm, me either….Be well…
[tags]absenteeism, employee wellness, obesity, health promotion, stress, engagement, productivity, job burnout, vacations, work-life balance, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack, Envisia, Envisia Learning [/tags]
Ken Nowack
Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)
Allow me to retort with a look at absenteeism from a different angle.Th national trend that speaks to the work ethic of our workforce is the drastic escalation in unwed mothers. Nationwide, the birth rate for women having children without the stability of marriage is more than thirty-five percent. For black women alone, the rate is even higher, an estimated seventy percent. Kids raised without fathers around on a regular basis are twice as likely to drop out of school or become teenage parents. In addition, these kids are one-and-a-half times more likely to be without jobs. The number of unwed mothers was relatively small before the 1960s. Once President Johnson created the Great Society programs, the number of out-of-wedlock babies exploded. The shocking increase in absentee fathers has many roots. However, I ask anyone to look at a chart of the national number of unwed mothers over the past fifty years and tell me when the problem started. I detail this situation in my management book, Wingtips with Spurs: Lessons From the Ranch. I don’t care what certain segments of society claim; a fatherless child tends to grow up undisciplined and lazy. When this young person shadows your doorway, he or she becomes your personal problem as well as society’s. Before you go screaming about the virtues of single motherhood, I fully understand that there are exceptions to the rule. I know that single parents have raised many industrious, intelligent, contributing people. I have a great deal of respect not only for the child who grew into a productive adult in spite of the hardships but also for the parent who succeeded in this most important of endeavors. With that said, these exceptional people are not the norm.
Ah, yes – good old presenteeism.
Presenteeism exists because ‘work’ is still rooted in the 1950s. If we didn’t give face time so much importance, presenteeism wouldn’t exist.
Everyone should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want – as long as the work gets done. Why? Because it improves productivity, employee engagement, and morale. It also improves voluntary turnover rates and helps organizations get rid of people that are just taking up space. And, it forces managers to be crystal clear about goals and expectations – and ensures everyone is focused on outcomes vs. activities.
Giving people freedom over how they spend their time will eliminate presenteeism. Mark our words.
Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
Creators of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)
Authors of the forthcoming book “WHY WORK SUCKS AND HOW TO FIX IT”