presenteeism

English

Etymology

From presentee +‎ -ism, after absenteeism, coined by academic Cary Cooper.

Noun

presenteeism (uncountable)

1. (chiefly UK) The fact of being present at work, especially if one is too sick to be productive, or working beyond the expected hours. [from 20th c.]

   Coordinate term: absenteeism

   • 2016, Slavina Spasova, Denis Bouget and Bart Vanhercke, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, December 2016

     Research shows that presenteeism, apart from the obvious danger of contamination of other workers, can lead to longer absence from work later on.

   • 2016 September 19, Peter Cheese, The Guardian:

     Organisations that have noticed an increase in presenteeism are nearly twice as likely to report an increase in stress-related absence and more than twice as likely to report an increase in mental health problems among their staff too.

   • 2020 March 15, William Hanage, “I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Employers should guarantee sick pay, including for contacts of known cases, and do everything they can to discourage the practice of “presenteeism”.

   • 2020 June 1, Paul Stephen, “Mental health in the workplace”, in Rail, page 50:

     "This also contributes to 'presenteeism', where people work when they are not at their most productive, and the newer trend of 'leaveism' where employees feel they must work outside of their normal hours."

Translations

being at work when sick

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 出勤主義／出勤主义 (chūqín zhǔyì)

• Finnish: presenteismi
• French: présentéisme (fr) m
• German: Präsentismus (de) m
• Romanian: prezentism (ro) n
• Spanish: presentismo (es) m

Paronyms

• presentism