The impact of workload, co-worker pressure and supervisor pressure on employee presenteeism: Evidence from Sri Lanka

Abstract

Presenteeism is one of the major contemporary issues in Human Resource Management (HRM) as it negatively impacts on worker productivity and ultimately on organizational productivity and goal achievement. Thus, employee presenteeism which refers to attending work while ill needs to be discouraged. A systematic empirical study was carried out with regards to employee presenteeism owing to little research done, contextual gap and intellectual curiosity of authors. Objectives of the study were; (1) to find the degree of presenteeism of Sri Lankan executive and non-executive employees in Colombo District under study; (2) to find the impact of workload on employee presenteeism; (3) to find the impact of co-worker pressure on employee presenteeism; (4) to find the impact of supervisor pressure on employee presenteeism; (4) to find the overall impact of workload, co-worker pressure and supervisor pressure on employee presenteeism; and (5) to investigate whether there is any significant difference between male and female employees under study in terms of presenteeism. The nature of this study was analytical; time horizon was cross sectional; and the unit of analysis was individual. A theoretical framework was formulated based on some empirical evidences in literature review and logical beliefs of the authors. Three different instruments were developed by the authors to measure the workload, co-worker pressure, and supervisor pressure while Stanford Presenteeism Scale (SPS) was utilized to measure employee presenteeism. Reliability and validity of the instruments are assured. Survey method was utilized and 72 executive and non-executive employees in Colombo district responded to the questionnaire through the sampling technique of convenient sampling technique. Small sample size can be a major limitation of the study and it can be suggested to explore more on the difference between executive and non-executive employees in terms of presenteeism using a larger sample. The empirical findings revealed that the degree of employee presenteeism is between average and high and there is a significant positive impact from workload, co-worker pressure and supervisor pressure on employee presenteeism. Further it was revealed that there is no significant difference between male and female employees under the study in terms of presenteeism.

Keywords: Co-worker Pressure, Presenteeism, Supervisor Pressure, Workload