Going to work while ill has negative effect on workers’ productivity, research finds

Close to half of UK employees went to work despite being ill, a situation that seriously affects their overall productivity, recent data from the Health in the Workplace Report has been able to reveal.

The research found that that 40% of employees have not taken a single day off for illness in the last 12 months, despite 11% of people stating that they had been unwell as a result of their jobs in the last year. Furthermore, around 28% of people participating in the poll said that they feel under pressure from bosses to go into work even when ill.

These findings coincide with research released by Nottingham Trent University, which suggests 'sickness presenteeism' — the act of attending work when ill — was strongly and negatively linked to job satisfaction and work engagement.

"People may disengage from work when ill, but still feel a need to work because they are physically present in the workplace," said Maria Karanika-Murray, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University's School of Social Sciences.

"People who attend work while ill may judge their work to be of lower quality, produce less, and perform worse compared to what they expect of themselves," she said. "They are not able to engage with work as they would normally and this can lead to reduced productivity and in turn lower levels of satisfaction.

Tensor attendance monitoring system can help streamline sickness absence management

A Tensor top-range employee attendance monitoring system can easily help employers set comprehensive policies to support employers in dealing with sickness absence.

The Tensor WinTA.NET integrated workforce management solution incorporates a dedicated Absence Planning and Entitlement Management feature. It comes pre-loaded with graphical calendar charts that provide a colourful way of viewing an individual's or a department's absence records.

Each employee can be allocated different entitlements for absence such as annual leave or allowed sickness. As absence is booked and taken, the remainder available for each entitlement is updated. Entitlement formulae are used to calculate more complex entitlements calculated on a rising scale based upon length of service.

If you'd like to find out more about the Tensor workforce management solutions, just contact our team or Book a Demo, we'll be more than happy to answer all of your questions and queries.