This position paper brings together recent and emerging developments in the field of presenteeism. A critical synthesis of the evidence is needed due to persisting conceptual and methodological challenges as well as the increased volume of research in the field. This paper integrates emerging evidence and critical thinking into three areas: (1) concept, (2) measurement and methodological issues, and (3) the context of presenteeism. First, due to the variety of existing definitions, competing understandings, as well as the notion of positive presenteeism, it is important to reconsider the notion of presenteeism. Second, it is important to reflect on the measurement of the act of presenteeism and the productivity loss associated with that. Third, following the call to investigate presenteeism in specific contexts, it is important to explain the social, occupational, cross-cultural aspects, as well as the contemporary workplace changes. Based on this critical synthesis, we conclude by identifying recommendations for future research on presenteeism.

There is a broad consensus that associations exist between leadership behaviour and employee health. However, much less is known about potential mediating processes underlying links between specific leader behaviours, for instance presenteeism (i.e. working while being ill), and indicators of employee health, such as sick leave. Integrating theories of social information processing, social learning, and the allostatic load hypothesis, we propose that employee presenteeism mediates the positive association between leader presenteeism and employee sick leave. This hypothesis was tested with a multilevel mediation model using three-wave longitudinal data from 74 leaders and their 412 team members across a time period of 22 months. As hypothesised, leader presenteeism had a positive effect on employee presenteeism which, in turn, had a positive effect on employee sick leave, controlling for baseline measures of employee presenteeism and sick leave, as well as employee general health status, shared workload and job autonomy, and demographic characteristics. Additionally, leader presenteeism had a positive indirect effect on employee sick leave through employee presenteeism. These results contribute to the occupational health psychology literature by suggesting that leader health-related behaviour can have consequences for employee health-related behaviour and employee health.

The present study examines the joint roles of leadership and stressors for presenteeism of scientific staff. Leaders may have an impact on employees’ health, both directly through interpersonal interactions and by shaping their working conditions. In the field of science, this impact could be special because of the mentoring relationships between the employees (e.g., PhD students) and their supervisors (e.g., professors). Based on the job demands-resources framework (JD-R), we hypothesized that the pressure to be present at the workplace induced by supervisors (supervisorial pressure) is directly related to employees’ presenteeism as well as indirectly via perceptions of time pressure. The conservation of resources theory (COR) states that resource loss resulting from having to deal with job demands weakens the resource pool and therefore the capacity to deal with other job demands. Thus, we hypothesized that accumulation of work moderates the relationship between supervisorial pressure and time pressure, such that the relationship is stronger when accumulation of work is high compared to if accumulation of work is low. Cross-sectional data were obtained from 212 PhD students and postdocs of 30 scientific institutions in Germany. Analysis was performed using the SPSS macro PROCESS (Hayes, 2013). Supervisorial pressure was directly associated with higher presenteeism of employees and indirectly through increased time pressure. Moreover, supervisorial pressure and accumulation of work interacted to predict time pressure, but in an unexpected way. The positive relationship between supervisorial pressure and time pressure is stronger when accumulation is low compared to if accumulation of work is high. It seems possible that job stressors do not accumulate but substitute each other. Threshold models might explain the findings. Moreover, specific patterns of interacting job demands for scientific staff should be considered in absence management.

Digitalization and demographic change represent two megatrends that impact organizations and workplaces around the globe. Rapid developments in information and communication technology (ICT) are fundamentally changing the ways in which work is conducted. At the same time, workforces are becoming increasingly older and age diverse. Integrating the model of workplace ICT use and work design with socioemotional selectivity theory from the lifespan development literature, we investigate employee age as a moderator of the indirect and total effects of ICT use for task and social functions on self-rated task proficiency and job satisfaction. As potential mediators, we focus on three job-related resources: job autonomy, team cohesion, and task significance. Data were collected from 1761 employees at three measurement points across two months. The results showed that ICT use for task and social functions were not significantly associated with job autonomy, team cohesion, task significance, task proficiency, and job satisfaction, while controlling for baseline levels of these mediator and outcome variables. Job autonomy was negatively related to task proficiency, and team cohesion was positively related, whereas both job autonomy and team cohesion were positively related to job satisfaction. Contrary to expectations, age did not moderate the indirect and total effects of ICT use for task and social functions on task proficiency and job satisfaction. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research and practice regarding ICT use and age in the work context.

Sickness presence can have important individual and organizational consequences, such as health deterioration or productivity loss. Additional risks, such as negative customer reactions, may be particularly relevant in the service sector. Based on affective events theory and appraisal theories, we hypothesize that employee sickness presence negatively impacts customer repurchase and recommendation intentions. Furthermore, we explore potential affective mechanisms of these effects, including disease avoidance, personal anger, moral outrage, post-consumption guilt, and customer compassion for the employee. We conducted four studies, including three experimental vignette methodology studies (Ns = 227, 72, and 763) and a qualitative study (N = 54). In Study 1, employee sickness presence had negative effects on repurchase and recommendation intentions. Results of Study 2 show that customers experienced disgust, fear, anger, guilt, compassion, and indifference in response to sickness presence. In Study 3, anger explained the negative effects of employee sickness presence on repurchase and recommendation intentions, while appraisals of moral fairness were negatively related to both customer intentions. Finally, in Study 4, disgust and anger explained negative effects, while fear, guilt, and compassion explained positive effects of employee sickness presence on customer intentions. Appraisals of goal incongruence, reduced agency of the customer, and uncertainty were negatively related to customer intentions. The physical absence of the customer in the service encounter (phone call) mitigated the experience of disgust, fear, and anger, whereas it exacerbated feelings of compassion for the ill employee.

Numerous cross-sectional studies have examined associations of employees’ sickness presence (i.e., working while being ill) with job satisfaction and health. However, these studies conflate between- and within-person variance and do not allow disentangling the direction of effects among these constructs. Sickness presence may have positive or negative within-person effects on job satisfaction and health, and vice versa. Based on conservation of resources theory, the effort-recovery model, and the job demands-resources model, we test a set of competing hypotheses using a six-wave longitudinal study over 15 months with N = 363 employees. Results of random-intercept cross-lagged panel modeling showed that both sickness presence spells and frequency had negative within-person effects on job satisfaction, but did not predict health. In addition, job satisfaction had a negative within-person effect on sickness presence spells, and health had a negative within-person effect on sickness presence frequency. Overall, these findings contribute to the organizational literature by providing evidence for reciprocal and negative effects among sickness presence and job satisfaction, as well as a negative effect of health on sickness presence at the within-person level. Based on the findings, organizational practitioners could implement programs to enhance job satisfaction and health and to raise awareness about the potential negative consequences of sickness presence.