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Valuing reductions in on‐the‐job illness: ‘presenteeism’ from managerial and economic perspectives
Author(s) -
Pauly Mark V.,
Nicholson Sean,
Polsky Daniel,
Berger Marc L.,
Sharda Claire
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.1266
Subject(s) - presenteeism , absenteeism , business , labour economics , demographic economics , workload , economics , management
Abstract This paper reports on a study of manager perceptions of the cost to employers of on‐the‐job employee illness, sometimes termed ‘presenteeism,’ for various types of jobs. Using methods developed previously, the authors analyzed data from a survey of more than 800 US managers to determine the characteristics of various jobs and the relationship of those characteristics to the manager's view of the cost to the firm of absenteeism and presenteeism. Jobs with characteristics that suggest unusually high cost (relative to wages) were similar in terms of their ‘absenteeism multipliers’ and their ‘presenteeism multipliers.’ Jobs with high values of team production, high requirements for timely output, and high difficulties of substitution for absent or impaired workers had significantly higher indicators of cost for both absenteeism and presenteeism, although substitution was somewhat less important for presenteeism. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.