Being sick does not stop French employees. They went to work more than one in four sick days, a phenomenon of "presenteeism in case of illness", according to a study by the Ministry of Labor published Wednesday.
According to this study, based on 19,200 responses to a survey conducted from October 2015 to June 2016, “employees report an average of eleven days of illness which resulted in eight days of absence from work”, specifies the Department of Studies and Statistics (Dares).
“More than one in four days of illness (27%) resulted in presenteeism, a practice which consists of going to work while being ill,” notes the Dares.
Work despite everything
At the European level, this phenomenon is particularly marked in France, where 62% of employees had at least one day of presenteeism in the event of illness in 2015, against 42% of employees in the whole of the European Union, according to a survey. European Union on working conditions.
"The propensity to presenteeism [...] varies firstly depending on the state of health of the employees: the higher the annual number of sick days, the lower the share of presenteeism days in the company", explains the Dares.
Employees who only report one or two sick days in the year spend 83% of those days at work, against 21% for those with more than fifteen days of sickness.
The importance of working conditions
Working conditions also play an important role in the propensity of employees to come to work while being sick. Thus, “employees who report bad relations with their hierarchy, intense work or a feeling of economic insecurity tend to spend at work a greater part of their sick days,” notes the Dares.
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“When faced with a significant demand for work (in terms of intensity, quantity or working time), or when there is a lack of means to do his job properly […], the employee could be discouraged from taking time off. by the prospect of an even greater amount of work when she returns from illness or by pressure from colleagues who would fall back on unrealized tasks, ”she analyzes.
