Attendance at work that costs more than absenteeism?
We have long measured the health of a company by its absenteeism rate. Fewer people absent, fewer problems. The logic seemed unstoppable. “It was without counting on these employees who come, but who should not have.”
This is what the latest TELUS Health barometer shows: 61% of French employees declare that they work at least one day per week whilethey don’t feel wellphysically or mentally.
More than one in two employees get up, open their computer or take their car, even though their state of health advises against it.
The figures from the study are clear:
An employee who works despite a degraded state loses on average 38.8 days of productivity per year,
compared to 29.6 days for those who choose to stay at home when they are not well.
That is to say a difference of 9.2 days per person per year, to the disadvantage of presenteeism. And the longer the phenomenon takes hold, the higher the bill rises.
An employee who comes to work sick three days a week loses 55.9 days of annual productivity. Five days a week: 62.3 days. Physical presence is therefore not a guarantee of performance. It’s often even the opposite.
What remains difficult to measure is the quality of the work produced in this state. An exhausted or anxious employee responds to emails, participates in meetings, processes files. Apparently, everything is going as it should.
But his concentration is impaired, his decisions less reliable, his ability to produce quality work noticeably reduced.
TELUS data indirectly confirms this: the 39% of employees who never work when they are not well display the best mental health score of the panel, at 74.4 out of 100, or nearly 13 points above the national average, established at 61.6.
Also read:
How to reduce presenteeism at work and protect performance?
Behind presentism, there is often a deeper unease.
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The TELUS barometer paints a worrying picture: 42% of employees say they are anxious35% believe that their mental health affects their productivity, 32% feel isolated.
Furthermore, 37% of workers present a high risk for their mental health and 42% a moderate risk. Only 21% show low risk. Presentism is therefore often only the visible symptom of a situation which has deteriorated well in advance.
What employees actually expect: more support for physical health for 26% of them, more professional development opportunities for 25%, and training in stress management and resilience for 22%.
For HR teams, the priority is to learn how to detect weak signals before they become critical situations.
Persistent fatigue, reduced concentration, irritability or mental overload are all indicators that local managers can identify, provided they are aware of them and feel justified in taking action.
Corporate culture also plays a determining role. Only 46% of employees believe that their company really promotes their well-being.
And the productivity gap between those who feel supported and the others is significant: 36.2 days lost per year for the former, compared to 52.6 for the latter, i.e. more than 16 days of annual difference.
Encouraging an employee to stay at home when they are unable to work is not a cost. It’s a measurable investment.
TELUS data demonstrates this: presenteeism weakens mental health over time, degrades the quality of work and generates productivity losses that most companies underestimate.
For HR, the challenge is no longer just to reduce absenteeism, but to build an environment where employees can really recover when they need it, without this being perceived as a lack of commitment.
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