The problematic of presenteeism has been known for a long time. Staying at work long hours just to impress the boss creates a toxic environment that leads to overwork. The pandemic has shown us a way to move to remote work, however people are now actually working longer than ever. Messages get answered at all times of the day just to show how engaged people are. Presenteeism as simply gone digital. Subconscious biases keep the practice intact. Unless we acknowledge the harm of it and actively create a workplace that discourages it, we will be slaves to presenteeism forever.
Brandy Aven, associate professor of organizational theory at Carnegie Mellon University says that “The presenteeism culture favors those who have time to show up early and leave late.” This can mean that parents for example, are unfairly treated since they might have no choice but to leave early. There are indications that people who don’t put in face time may get penalized. Telecommuting has generally been stigmatized as irresponsible so far. Studies have shown that employees that did remote working had slower salary growth.
Leigh Thompson is a professor of management at Northwestern University and says that there are two key psychological phenomena that fuel presenteeism. One of them is the “mere-exposure effect”. This phenomenon explains that people tend to develop a preference for something merely because they are familiar with it. Therefore, if a worker shows up more often and makes him- or herself more visible, others might like him or her more just because of that. Others might then not even realize why the like that “presentee” more than others. The other psychological concept that promotes presenteeism is the “halo effect”. This cognitive bias describes the tendency for positive impressions of a person in one area to positively influence one’s opinion in other areas. Evaluators tend to be influenced by their precious judgements of performance or personality. The halo effect can prevent someone from accepting a person based on the idea of an unfounded belief on what is good or bad. In the workplace this can mean that someone who brings you a coffee or asks about your weekend is rated as “a sweet guy” and then therefore is also associated to be “a productive worker” too. These assumptions are not based on any evidence but can lead to promotions or other benefits.
Even though employees might not actually be more productive when they are putting in overtime, they still feel the need to perform, in person and now digitally. During the pandemic, the hours worked around the world have gone up not down. Employees feel that if everyone else is online, they need to be online too. Many bosses only see the most visible people too and assume those are the most productive ones. Since outputs are not so easy to measure anymore in a knowledge economy rather than in a manufacturing-centric one, managers tend to think workers are producing as long as they are at their desks. Workers know managers value this visibility and follow their peers in showing their presence. Especially during times of instability like now during the Covid-19 pandemic people are worried about losing their jobs and they want to show that they can perform well and stay reliable. However, the quality of workers’ output suffers due to this rush to perform.
In order to get rid of presenteeism a top-down overhaul of what is valued in the company is needed. Workers and especially leaders need to model a healthier behavior. When work is done, log off, leave. Hanging around just to show you are present pressures others to do the same. Education around presenteeism and the psychological effects that promote it needs to be provided as well. Also, if a company can introduce clearer metrics that can be used to measure productivity presenteeism can be avoided. Managers need to ask themselves: “What are my baseline expectations on what the team is working on during the coming time and who is going above and beyond them?”.
Even though you would hope that during the pandemic presenteeism would go back, this has not been the case. On the contrary. Without a good hard look at our ingrained biases, this transformation will not take place.
