Protecting well-being and performance after sickness presenteeism under demanding conditions: the dual effects of proactive personality and work reward as resources

Based on conservation of resources (COR) theory, we tested a moderated mediation model of presenteeism. We hypothesized that heavy workload would precipitate sickness presenteeism, which would lead to elevated exhaustion and hampered job performance (mediation). We further hypothesized that proactive personality and work reward would mitigate the positive "presenteeism-exhaustion" and the negative "presenteeism-performance" relationships (moderation on the second-stage of the mediation). We conducted a two-wave panel study (with one year interval), collecting data from 218 employees working in diverse industries in Taiwan. We found significant moderating effects of proactive personality and work reward on the indirect effect of workload on job performance via presenteeism over the span of one year. Contrary to our hypotheses, workload related positively and indirectly (via presenteeism) to job performance, but only for those high in proactive personality and work reward. Although the moderating effects of proactive personality and work reward on the "workload-presenteeism-exhaustion" link were insignificant, results did support the buffering role of proactive personality on the positive relationship between presenteeism and exhaustion. Namely, this relationship was found to be positive only for employees with lower levels of proactive personality, whilst the relationship was not significant for employees higher in proactive personality. These results tentatively suggest that resources have different functions for the outcomes of presenteeism. The possibility to integrate the buffering role of resources against the deleterious effects of presenteeism with the enabling role of resources to support functional presenteeism is not only of theoretical interest, but also of important practical implications for better managing the presenteeism behaviour.