Too Scared to Go Sick: Precarious Academic Work and ‘Presenteeism Culture’ in the UK Higher Education Sector During the Covid-19 Pandemic

This article discusses the story of Steven, a precarious academic worker, and his decision to work from home while being infected with Covid-19; a phenomenon called virtual presenteeism. As argued, Steven’s sickness presence is the outcome of the increasing precarity and job insecurity in the sector, as well as the outcome of a presenteeism culture in academia which is being facilitated by technology and the blended learning approach adopted during the pandemic. The article outlines precarious academic workers’ fear to go off sick, illustrating how Steven negotiates the precarity of his contract via virtual presenteeism to portray over-commitment to the institution and avoid the risk of job loss. As concluded, while blended learning becomes the new educational norm in higher education, virtual presenteeism risks becoming the new attendance norm. This article calls for more research to examine how the blended teaching approach will further impact on academic work, post-pandemic.

Effects of Employee Sickness Presence on Customer Repurchase and Recommendation Intentions: The Role of Customer Affective Reactions

Sickness presence can have important individual and organizational consequences, such as health deterioration or productivity loss. Additional risks, such as negative customer reactions, may be particularly relevant in the service sector. Based on affective events theory and appraisal theories, we hypothesize that employee sickness presence negatively impacts customer repurchase and recommendation intentions. Furthermore, we explore potential affective mechanisms of these effects, including disease avoidance, personal anger, moral outrage, post-consumption guilt, and customer compassion for the employee. We conducted four studies, including three experimental vignette methodology studies (Ns = 227, 72, and 763) and a qualitative study (N = 54). In Study 1, employee sickness presence had negative effects on repurchase and recommendation intentions. Results of Study 2 show that customers experienced disgust, fear, anger, guilt, compassion, and indifference in response to sickness presence. In Study 3, anger explained the negative effects of employee sickness presence on repurchase and recommendation intentions, while appraisals of moral fairness were negatively related to both customer intentions. Finally, in Study 4, disgust and anger explained negative effects, while fear, guilt, and compassion explained positive effects of employee sickness presence on customer intentions. Appraisals of goal incongruence, reduced agency of the customer, and uncertainty were negatively related to customer intentions. The physical absence of the customer in the service encounter (phone call) mitigated the experience of disgust, fear, and anger, whereas it exacerbated feelings of compassion for the ill employee.

Favorable Working Conditions Related to Health Behavior Among Nurses and Care Assistants in Sweden—A Population-Based Cohort Study

Objective: To analyze the associations between favorable physical and psychosocial work factors and health behavior among healthcare employees (nurses and care assistants) with health complaints.Methods: The study was based on seven iterations (2001–2013) of a biennial Swedish work environment survey linked with data from public registers. In all, 7,180 healthcare employees, aged 16–64 years, who had reported health complaints, were included. Health behavior was operationalized through four combinations of sickness absence (SA) and sickness presence (SP): ‘good health behavior' (Low SP/Low SA), ‘recovery behavior' (Low SP/High SA), ‘risk behavior' (High SP/Low SA), and ‘poor health behavior' (High SP/High SA). Odds ratios (OR) were calculated by multinomial logistic regression with 95% confidence intervals (CI).Results: After adjusting for socio-demographic factors, those who rarely worked in strenuous postures had an increased probability of having ‘good health behavior' (OR range: nurses 1.72–2.02; care assistants 1.46–1.75). Those who rarely experienced high job demands had increased odds for having ‘good health behavior' (OR: nurses 1.81; OR range: care assistants 1.67–2.13), while having good job control was found to be related to ‘good health behavior' only among care assistants (OR range 1.30–1.68). In the full model, after also considering differences in health, none of the work environment indicators affected ‘good health behavior' among nursing professionals. Among care assistants, rarely having heavy physical work and having low psychosocial demands remained significantly associated with ‘good health behavior' (OR range: 1.24–1.58) and ‘recovery behavior' (OR range: 1.33–1.70). No associations were found between favorable work environment factors and ‘risk behavior' among the two groups of employees. However, positive assessments of the work situation were associated with ‘good health behavior,' even after controlling for all confounders for both groups (OR range: 1.43–2.69).Conclusions: ‘Good health behavior' and ‘recovery behavior' among care assistants were associated with favorable physical and psychosocial working conditions even when health was considered. This implies that reduced sickness presence and sickness absence among care assistants can be achieved through improved physical and psychosocial working conditions.

Virtual Reality Sickness Mitigation Methods

Using virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) can induce VR sickness. VR sickness can cause strong discomfort, decrease users' presence and enjoyment, especially in games, shorten the duration of the VR experience, and can even pose health risks. Previous research has explored different VR sickness mitigation methods by adding visual effects or elements. Field of View (FOV) reduction, Depth of Field (DOF) blurring, and adding a rest frame into the virtual environment are examples of such methods. Although useful in some cases, they might result in information loss. This research is the first to compare VR sickness, presence, workload to complete a search task, and information loss of these three VR sickness mitigation methods in a racing game with two levels of control. To do this, we conducted a mixed factorial user study (N = 32) with degree of control as the between-subjects factor and the VR sickness mitigation techniques as the within-subjects factor. Participants were required to find targets with three difficulty levels while steering or not steering a car in a virtual environment. Our results show that there are no significant differences in VR sickness, presence and workload among these techniques under two levels of control in our VR racing game. We also found that changing FOV dynamically or using DOF blur effects would result in information loss while adding a target reticule as a rest frame would not.

Health and motivation as mediators of the effects of job demands, job control, job support, and role conflicts at work and home on sickness presenteeism and absenteeism

Purpose The first objective was to contribute to a better understanding of the contrasting and paradoxical results in studies of work environment factors and sickness presence and sickness absence. A second objective was to examine if, and under what conditions, employees choose to replace sickness absence with sickness presence, i.e., so-called substitution. Methods The study utilizes a large body of cross-sectional questionnaire data (n = 130,161) gathered in Sweden from 2002 to 2007 in connection with a comprehensive health promotion initiative. Health and motivation were analyzed as mediators of the effects of five job factors, job control, job support, job demand, role conflict and “work to family conflict” on sickness presence and absence. Results The results concerning job demands indicate substitution in that increased job demands are associated with increased presenteeism and reduced absenteeism. The direct effect of higher job support was increased absenteeism, but via the health and motivation paths, the total effect of more social support was health-promoting and associated with a reduction in sickness absence and sickness presence. High job control emerged as the most pronounced health-promoting factor, reducing sickness presenteeism as well as absenteeism. More role conflicts and work-to-family conflicts were directly and indirectly associated with decreased health and increased absenteeism as well as presenteeism. earlier research. Conclusion The mediation analyzes shed light on some of the paradoxes in research on sickness presenteeism and sickness absenteeism, especially regarding job demands and job support. The substitution effect is important for workplace policy and occupational health practice.

Sickness Presence among Health Care Professionals: A Cross Sectional Study of Health Care Professionals in Slovenia

Background and objectives: Presenteeism is a relatively new phenomenon that people, despite complaints and ill health that should prompt them to rest and take sick leave, go to work in any case. The highest sickness presence is largely to be found in the care and welfare and educational sectors. The aim of the study is to investigate the relations between different factors and sickness presence among health care professionals. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the largest hospital in Slovenia involving 5865 health care professionals employed at the University Medical Centre Ljubljana in the period between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2010. Logistic regression methods were used to assess the associations between risk factors and their interactions and sickness presence. Results: Besides high odds for sickness presence in multivariate modelling for acute (OR = 359.7; 95%CI = 89.1–1452.8) and chronic disease (OR = 722.5; 95%CI = 178.5–2924.5) the highest odds were calculated for poor self-related health (OR = 3.0; 95%CI = 1.9–4.8), no possibility of replacement (OR = 1.9; 95%CI = 1.5–2.3), sickness absence > two times a year (OR = 1.6; 95%CI = 1.2–2.1), disabled workers (OR = 1.6; 95%CI = 1.0–2.5), and lower salary when on sick leave (OR = 1.5; 95%CI = 120–1.9). Risk factors interactions were not found to be associated with sickness presence among health care workers. Conclusions: The pre-requisite for higher sickness presence is workers’ bad health. The results indicate that sickness presence was associated with psycho social risk factors at work and their economic consequences. Continued sickness presence might have negative rather than positive consequences on work and health care professionals’ health in the future. Sickness presence needs to be taken into account for health care organizers.

Sickness presenteeism as coping behaviour under conditions of high job control

Job control – denoting an employee’s decision authority regarding timing, location or method – plays a key role in occupational research and is typically viewed as a positive resource that helps to buffer negative health effects induced by work demands. Moreover, previous research has suggested that higher job control helps to reduce sickness presenteeism of employees – defined as attending work while ill. Conversely, by considering various theoretical approaches (such as the vitamin model and the ‘entreployee’ concept) it is hypothesized that very high levels of job control may increase sickness presence behaviour of employees as a coping strategy aimed at overcoming a perceived threat of productivity loss due to sickness. As a consequence, a u-shaped curvilinear association between job control and sickness presenteeism is expected – especially for vulnerable individuals. Based on survey data collected from a heterogeneous random sample of 532 employees, a curvilinear association between job control and sickness presenteeism is confirmed, which is amplified for individuals with a higher number of days with sickness. It is concluded that an increase in job control at low or moderate levels is associated with reduced sickness presenteeism, whereas very high levels of job control are related to an increased need for sickness presence.