Personal Blogs

It is a very important time to be a Nigerian business leader not just because of the challenge of AI and sustainability but because of seismic shifts in the meaning of leadership and effectiveness. I recently attended the B812 Day School and learned from leaders from other sectors, locations, and seniority (such as health, education, and the wider private sector) who felt the same about the role leadership plays at all levels, especially during COVID-19.

Time and time again, what was mentioned was the concept of follow-through - that is, how do we get our employees to act persuasively (and authentically) after a decision has been taken? I told a funny story about my experience researching my father's career who is the chairman of Thomas Wyatt Plc in Nigeria.

I pointed also to the amazing story of the late Herbert Wigwe and how I was watching motivational videos of him and D'Banj back in the day. Herbert was an example to us all and a dedicated nation builder, who led as a transformational MD. Not only in the financing of critical infrastructure across the Federal Republic in his day job but also as a man. Wigwe University, as an example of Herbert's influence, is set to be an outstanding success story. Herbert was an exceptional example of such leadership and I pay my respects.

Literature Topics

What resonated with many of us on B812's Day School was when we were asked what two unit topics we valued most from the Evidence-Based Value in People Management module. Most people cited the hierarchy of evidence or Analytics, but what I found most interesting was neither the aforementioned nor the obvious attraction presented by the apex of Gifford's hierarchy. What was it then? Easy - in hindsight, I found learning through qualitative methods such as semi-structured interviewing and surveying as containing the most to offer.

Andy (a B812 Tutor) asked us to select one of our blogs to present as a discussion topic on the Day School. I chose an extract from this page, where I have posted a total of 23 course-related blogs. For the EMA, I have chosen Wellbeing as a theme for the part 1 literature review and the part 2 critically reflective account. I decided to choose Wellbeing as a theme based on personal experience. I did some prior research into Recruitment as a theme for the EMA however, I decided against it because I want to continue to read more into the role of evidence, data, and analytics in people management. Herein lies an excellent opportunity for me to do so.

My chosen topic for the part 1 lit review within Wellbeing is Presenteeism, which is mentioned a few times in the B812 module in tutorials and the TGFs. One of the earliest references is in December (Week 6). I have since been learning by using various sources (OU’s Library, Google Scholar, JSTOR, etc.) which provide journal articles that explain a diversity of views on why presenteeism is so excessively costly in comparison to a theory known to many in the field as ‘shirking’. Dr Andrew Bryce (Sheffield) wrote in one of my other blog posts that the two aspects of productivity, that is, shirking and presenteeism, are similar but distinct. However, are both the responsibility of HR to ascertain the impact of therein?

Not long before I joined the MSc in HRM, I was between program options. My research into what would be my third degree had led me to HRM as a viable route into a postdoctoral role. While considering my options with a skip in my step and a huge bout of consummate optimism, I without hesitation applied to graduate admissions at The London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) for what was meant to be a 1+3 (MRes + PhD in Employee Relations and Human Resources) - this was in late July by the way - this application ended up being for an MSc in Economics and Management, mainly due to the fact that a hard deadline for the 1+3 program had just elapsed. My only option was to apply for another Uni at short notice or defer my interest until the next academic year.

University application processes are strange things because you can't really apply everywhere, you have enough time and energy to engage in a limited number of applications. Having realised that I had spent the best part of £80 GBP - the set fee that LSE charges for the privilege of tendering its application process, chased multiple academic references for the best part of a month and produced a compelling supporting statement for what turned out to be nothing whatsoever, I decided to channel my efforts towards this distance learning program instead of LSE’s ERHR, maintaining all the prior graft I had accumulated for postdoctoral research.

Considering productivity and well-being in the literature

Whilst in a sort of quasi-transition between these two programs, I uncovered an interesting article by the team at MorganAsh. Now, I don’t wish to be too complimentary to the entire paper, but in the article, the company through its Director, Andrew Gething, speaks eloquently about Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and absenteeism in the context of Financial Services. Whilst conducting research on this article, I came across and shared something that popped up in my academic inbox about a term called ‘presenteeism’ a few days ago courtesy of People Management magazine.

To explain, I recently wrote an article on microeconomic wage bargaining which uncovered the effect of shirking on wages. Presenteeism is essentially an extension of the shirking principle. The Brown and Sessions model is interesting because it is cited by Andrew Bryce in his paper which is perhaps the second most authoritative in the literature. Having retweeted Dr. Bryce’s post on X about his paper, which was subsequently the subject of a few exchanges between ourselves via e-mail, it was important for me to draw inferences from this duality to bring closure to my convictions. I, for one, believe that HR professionals must resolve the landscape of factors influencing dysfunctional presenteeism in practice either through soft or hard means. More on this later.

Life is a funny ol’ thing. It would almost certainly have never crossed my mind that, even with my rich vein of experience in HR, I would have stumbled across such valuable a concept as presenteeism and leavism, so early on in my respective journey.

---

This post was written by Alfred Anate Mayaki, a student on the MSc in HRM, and was inspired by the work of Mark L. Bryan, Jennifer Roberts, and Andrew M. Bryce (2022) in an article entitled, “Dysfunctional Presenteeism: Effects of physical and mental health on work performance”.