It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working while sick: The relationship between workaholism and presenteeis

Workaholics are pushed to invest an excessive amount of time and energy to work in order to go along with their compulsive inner drive. As a consequence, these employees usually attend work even when feeling ill, thus exhibiting high levels of presenteeism. This study aims to investigate the impact of workaholism, as a personal demand, on presenteeism, as a negative outcome, by using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as theoretical framework. In addition, we explore the moderating role of job resources, i.e. relationship quality in the workplace and peer support, in line with the buffer hypothesis of the model. Data were collected by questionnaire on a sample of 322 employees (85% males; mean age= 47.4; SD= 6.8) working in one of the leading firms in Italy in environmental services management. Results of moderated multiple regression analyses supported the buffer effect of relationship quality in the workplace in the relationship between workaholism and presenteeism. In contrast, the buffer effect of peer support was not confirmed.