Today I was doing some research on presenteeism. In case you didn’t know, presenteeism is defined as “reduced on-the-job productivity” and is a “hidden cost to many employers.”

I was actually looking for better ways to measure presenteesism. While I found what I was looking for, I was most struck by the table below. This table shows the percentage of total cost (medical, pharmacy, absenteeism and preseenteeism) of health conditions attributed to presenteeism.

Percentage of total cost (medical, pharmacy, absenteeism and presenteeeism) of health conditions attributed to presenteeism

• Allergies 70%
• Osteoarthritis 56%
• Asthma 60%/li>
• Back/neck disorder 60%
• Breathing disorder 56%
• Cancer 30%
• Depression/anxiety 62%
• Diabetes mellitus 45%
• Fatigue 73%
• Heart/circulatory 28%
• High cholesterol 43%
• Hypertension 35%
• Migraine 70%
• Obesity 56%
• Other chronic 33%
• Respiratory infection 14%
• Sleeping problem 66%
• Stomach/bowel 67%

The two conditions that stuck me the most were allergies and migraines. The majority of the costs to the employers were not for medications but for presenteeism likely due to non-treatment or inadequate treatment. In the case of allergies, employees who took a non-sedating antihistamine were 5.2% more productive. For migraine sufferers there was an annual savings of $84-$118 per employee when migraines were properly treated. Imagine what the savings would be if migraines were prevented through diet/lifestyle changes or even biofeedback.

Just in case you are interested, here is the most official way I found to measure presenteeeism. Convert the percentage decrement in productivity into a number of hours per week a that an average individual is unproductive (for example, if an employee’s presenteeism is 20%, they are considered to be unproductive 8 hours out of the 40-hour work week). Then multiply that number by the average hourly wage and benefits cost for an employee and finally multiply that by the number of employees with that condition.

Reference: Schultz, A., Chen, C., Edington, D., The cost and impact of health conditions on presenteeism to employers. Pharmaeconomics 2009: 27 (5): 356-378.