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On average, employees cost businesses the equivalent of three months per year in lost productivity, according to a new GCC Insights report by Global Corporate Challenge (GCC).
GCC's study on presenteeism - the phenomenon where employees show up for work but don't perform at full capacity - included nearly 2,000 employees and validated against the World Health Organization's (WHO) Workplace Health and Productivity Questionnaire (HPQ).
The report found that while employees were absent from work an average of four days per year each, they confessed to being unproductive on the job for 57.5 days each - almost three working months. Businesses wanting to improve productivity should focus on reducing presenteeism, notes one of the study authors.
"[T]his study, and a growing body of independent research, indicates that businesses are focused on the wrong measure of productivity; absenteeism is not the major culprit," says GCC Insight's data scientist, Dr. Olivia Sackett. "Businesses use absenteeism rates as an indicator of engagement and productivity because it's easy to quantify. If your employee is at their desk or on the work site, you can tick a box."
Sackett, in an interview with EHSToday.com, was asked if researchers were surprised by the results. "I was surprised at first," she says, "but in light of anecdotal evidence, it wasn't all that surprising. Although 57.5 days per year sounds very high, it corresponds to a person working at 75 percent of their maximum productivity level. What did surprise me was that it was so much higher than absenteeism and yet not many people were...