The causes of presenteeism : a study of the antecedents of sickness presenteeism in the Singapore context.

• Main Authors: Chang, Hua Lin., Yeo, Ciau Er., Phua, Justin Wei Zheng.
• Other Authors: Hesan Ahmed Quazi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Management::Personnel management
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/48125
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Sickness presenteeism has gained increasing awareness among organizations in recent years. The main reason for its growing importance in the eyes of professionals is the overwhelming cost, surpassing the cost of absenteeism, incurred by employers when employees turn up for work feeling unwell. While most of the studies available in the current literature focus on the cost of presenteeism as well as the antecedents of presenteeism in the west, this study hopes to add value to the multitude of research by providing insights on the causes of sickness presenteeism in the Singapore context. As such, based on survey results generated from 462 working adults’ responses, this study aims to analyze a variety of constructs, ranging from work motivations to personality facets as well as organizational factors, and their subsequent relationships with sickness presenteeism. Several reliable measures were used to test the relationship between these constructs and presenteeism. More importantly, to extract optimal information from the surveyed population, the original list of health conditions in the Stanford Presenteeism Scale – 13 (SPS-13) was expanded to include the top five most prominent health conditions in Singapore (i.e., Cough, influenza, fever, diarrhea, headache) so as to increase the relevance of the list to Singaporeans. After testing out 13 bivariate relationships, analyses showed that 6 out of 13 variables showed a significant relationship with sickness presenteeism.