By Although we’ve had multiple COVID outbreaks — people still feel compelled to work despite being sick.
I’m as guilty of this as anyone I know. As a woman with a family, I always push through how I’m feeling and continue to “soldier on.” However, death could be upon me, and I will still move ahead to achieve my 9–5 targets. Whilst this is not encouraged in workplaces, and we were told not to come to work if we’re sick, remote working still allows us access to our teams and the ability to continue with our day, even though we aren’t physically present in the office. This is probably one downfall when working from home. But, if you can still open your eyes —It will be acceptable to work anyway. All you have to do is turn the video cam off! According to research from Trinity College in Dublin, unwell employees only engage in work when they have not met their daily goals. I believe this is true — and in today’s workplace, we’re never really meeting our goals because we have too many targets to hit! Researchers often refer to this phenomenon as ‘presenteeism’ as people who continue to work when experiencing ill health. Researchers refer to it as the ‘800-pound gorilla’ due to its costs on employees and the organisation. The prices we refer to here are impaired workability, burnout and lost productivity. This study showed the impact of presenteeism on employee effectiveness in demonstrating that depletion of mental resources is responsible for these harmful effects. Researchers recruited 126 employees who logged daily productivity across 12 working days and accumulated 995 daily work observations. People worked remotely during the COVID 19 outbreak in 2020 (the lockdown period). Researcher’s mentioned that It’s vital to tackle daily presenteeism, especially for those employees who work remotely. Managers should regularly discourage presenteeism and ask the team to take a breather when feeling unwell. Reducing daily work goals to rest and recuperate from their illness should be acceptable. Presenteeism can deplete energy, and it’s more beneficial for these individuals to work on pleasant tasks rather than anything tedious and overly stressful, as that can drain their energy. It may seem like a good idea, but working when you are sick can affect a remote worker’s performance, leaving the employee unable to recover after work. Although this is logical in theory, is anyone as stubborn as I am when it comes to wanting to hit your goals at work — no matter what? If you answer yes, I can only assume that your workplace iscutthroat and driven to succeed. My team is a steady team relying on one another to progress through tasks with speed and ease (as much as possible to achieve). Providing an incentive to your employees to make more money by adding some much-needed digits to their salaries also drives one to push a lot further — despite sickness. I’m probably not the best person to listen to in this regard, as I honestly work when I’m sick — and I have done so from the beginning of my career. Sucking it up and getting on with the job has always been my motto -despite how bad that might sound. I’d love to hear what you think about this subject. For example, do you work despite how you feel physically, and what about incentives? Do you think that’s a company’s way of encouraging this? You can read more about this research paper here.
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