Incidence and antecedents of presenteeism: The case of a federal government ministry in Malaysia

Human resource practices are focused on getting employees to be at the workplace. Absenteeism is disliked. But presenteeism - being at work when unwell is a silent and growing phenomenon that eats away at productivity. This study examined the incidence of presenteeism and 3 postulated predictors - HR policies, Organisational Commitment and Job Demands in one federal ministry involving 292 mostly middle level officers. Moderated hierarchical regression produced a significant but small effect (R²=.10) on presenteeism. Organisational Commitment was the only significant negative predictor while the effect of Job Demand was moderated by Job Security. Better modeling of organisational practices is needed to unveil the antecedents of presenteeism in Malaysia.