What is presenteeism?
Presenteeism is defined as ‘the loss in productivity that occurs when employees come to work but function at less than full capacity because of ill health’ (The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, 2007). It is likely to be more common among higher-paid staff thus is more costly. Evidence suggests that costs due to presenteeism can be several times higher than costs due to absenteeism. Estimates mainly come from the US and they range from around 1.9 – 6.8 times the costs of absenteeism. Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health estimated the costs of presenteeism attributable to mental health problems in the UK to be 1.8 times those of absenteeism. This is used as the central estimate in the tool. This is believed to be a conservative estimate for mental health problems. Counterbalancing this, however, is the fact that mental ill health is more likely to be manifested in the form of presenteeism than absenteeism compared with other ill-health problems. So for all health problems, the multiplie
