Even bloggers are writing about the latest addition to the HR lexicon: presenteeism.

A blogger named Ryck entitled his mid-day musings on the phenomenon “Working sick: Come to the office or stay home?” Ryck was fighting an upper respiratory tract illness, probably bronchitis. He felt, looked and sounded lousy, but went to work anyway.

“Why did I bother?” he asks rhetorically.

It is a very good question in these days of high-rise offices with their recirculated air. Ryck may have eased his conscience by going to work sick, but he didn’t do his co-workers — or his employer — any favours.

Joseph Ricciuti, national practice director of group and health care, Canada, at Watson Wyatt in Toronto, defines “presenteeism” as “at-work lost productivity.” In other words, he says, the lights are on, but nobody’s home: “It’s a big problem.”

Presenteeism accounts for up to 61% of employers’ health costs, according to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine,eclipsing the price-tag of absenteeism and medical and disability benefits.

“On average, Canadian workers take 9.1 sick days a year. Of those, 1.7 days are attributed to casual absences,” says Ricciuti. “These are people getting off the treadmill. Imagine what the level of productivity is before they get off? They are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. When you look at that, in terms of cost, on average it’s about 12% of payroll.”

Cary Cooper, a professor of organizational psychology and health at Manchester University in Britain, is credited with coining the term “presenteeism.” He used the word to describe the state of all those workers who, because of anxieties around downsizing and restructuring in the 1990s, would show up for work, put in long hours and not get much done. Largely the result of unresolved stress, presenteeism was a way to describe fear running amok.

But in the past three years, the term has taken on a life of its own, morphing to mean different things to different people. It has been used, for instance, by observers of human behaviour, who have discovered myriad causes and manifestations.

What’s happening is that stress — which then impacts health and well-being — has made its way into the office in the form of lost productivity. But that stress has various sources. For some, disengagement from work is a direct result of what’s happening in the workplace. This could be the result of poor leadership, lack of resources or unresolved conflict with peers, for instance.

“There is a misalignment between the organization’s interests and values and the individual’s interests and values,” says Gail Rieschi, president of employment agency VPI Inc. in Toronto. “Employees feel a lack of control, they don’t feel their efforts are being recognized and they lose interest.”

For others, the stress comes from unresolved personal issues, including poor health, aging parents, out-of-control teens and, frequently, money.

Whether the stress comes from work or personal issues, the result is that people do not contribute fully, their work suffers and they may become ill, spreading illnesses to co-workers.

Even if they’re not spreading germs, colleagues often are left to pick up the slack — and that can lead to a toxic work environment that takes its toll on the entire organization.

And that is why employers have to start paying attention to presenteeism, says Alain Thauvette, senior vice president of group and business insurance with Desjardins Financial Security in Montreal. “It’s a major problem,” he says, “one we cannot afford to ignore.” The financial institution recently published a survey that found:

> 62% of workers who suffered from physical problems caused by stress, anxiety or depression tried their best to maintain their usual work schedule. However, when outside work, most (59%) could not keep up their usual pace.

> Money is the main cause of stress outside work (44%). It is also the main reason many workers don’t take time off.

> 83% of respondents say technology has either increased or maintained stress levels.

Add to that the increased convergence of personal and work issues, and it is no wonder presenteeism has become a serious problem.

“There was a time when work life and home life were better defined,” says Rod Phillips, president and CEO of Toronto-based Shepell.fgi, which provides health and wellness solutions in the workplace. “People are now responding to BlackBerry messages at 9 p.m. and doing their online banking at 3 a.m.”

@page_break@And that takes a toll — first on the individual, then on the organization and, ultimately, on the economy.

The answer for employers, however, is not necessarily to make sick workers stay home, says Phillips.

Of course, any employee who has a contagious illness should stay away from the office. But it’s often not that simple, and employers need to be aware of the scope of the problem in their workplace. Employers also need to understand the causes, which will vary according to the demographics of the workplace, and provide support both for employees and managers.

The good news is that about 50% of employers across Canada have programs in place to address many issues with which their employees are struggling. Still, only one in five employees use the programs.

Ultimately, it all comes down to good people management, and that will happen only if managers are better trained to spot problems and deal with them.

“As organizations flattened out over the past 10 years, the span of control for managers has more than doubled,” says Phillips. “But we didn’t give people that much more training in how to be good managers, understand behaviour and coach people, so they can meet the objectives of employees as well as those of corporations.” IE