Presenteeism and Productivity Loss Among Employees of Iranian Gas Transmission Company Manufacturers

Presenteeism is introduced as a phenomenon according to which employees are physically present in the workplace but are functionally absent. This study aimed to investigate presenteeism and productivity loss associated with health problems among employees of the Iranian Gas Transmission Company (IGTC).

The participants were 2298 employees. Data collection instruments included the Stanford Presenteeism Scale (SPS-6) and the Health and Work Questionnaire (HWQ). Data analysis was performed using the multivariate logistic regression in SPSS software version 26.

More than 52% of the participants (1189 people) had experienced presenteeism at least once a year, while a total of 1073 people (47%) were non-presenteists. The results showed that the HWQ subsets including productivity (P = 0.001), focus (P = 0.023), relationships with the manager or boss (P = 0.007), impatience and irritability (P = 0.026), workplace satisfaction (P = 0.038) and finally the total HWQ score (P = 0.011) had a statistically significant relationship with presenteeism.

Presenteeism reduces the productivity of the workforce by reducing individual productivity, reducing peoplechr('39')s ability to concentrate, the inappropriate perception of the relationship with the manager/ boss, increasing their impatience, irritability and level of work-related stress and eventually reducing the level of peoplechr('39')s satisfaction with the work environment. This imposes a lot of costs on the organization.