Millions of employees around the world have experienced the pressure to stay late at the office, get there early, or work through lunch instead of going out or to the lunchroom with coworkers. It’s a phenomenon known as “presenteeism,” and it refers to the idea that there’s value to an employer simply from being present in the office. That value doesn’t necessarily even need to include any level of productivity.
In fact, plenty of pre-pandemic workers felt the urge to be present in the office before the boss got there or to stay until after the boss left, even if all they were doing was playing solitaire or looking at social media.
The Art of Looking Busy
“It’s almost hard to imagine a time in which people spent at least 40 hours a week in a physical office (and often even longer to impress the boss),” muses Bryan Lufkin in an article for BBC Worklife. Pre-pandemic, of course, this “presenteeism” was quite common. Employees had a top-of-mind awareness of the importance of being physically present and at least looking productive. And there’s data to support that tendency.
As Lufkin writes: “Before the pandemic, data from one U.K. survey showed that 80% of workers said presenteeism existed in their workplace, with a quarter of the respondents saying it had got worse since the prior year.”
Out of Sight Doesn’t Mean Out of Mind, or Non-Productive
Objectively, many managers understand that the sheer act of being present in the office doesn’t necessarily translate into engagement or commitment, let alone productivity. Yet, many still subjectively equate one with the other. But now that millions of workers across the country continue to work remotely due to COVID-19 precautions and millions are likely to continue to do so either full-time or in a hybrid arrangement due to permanent office policies, what is likely to happen to presenteeism?
Unfortunately for many workers, there are plenty of surrogates for an employee sitting at his or her desk in an office: answering a cell phone at all hours, responding to emails or instant messages over the weekend, and avoiding an “idle” status on company systems are all obvious examples.
In other words, simply shifting from an office building to a remote workplace won’t, by itself, remove the pressure to be “present.”
Ultimately, it is up to company leaders and managers to set appropriate expectations for staff when it comes to presenteeism. A key in establishing appropriate boundaries and norms is understanding that present does not necessarily equal productive.