User:MGMT90018 Absenteeism/sandbox

Definition

The term absenteeism has been commonly used in workplaces and industry since the end of World War II. Since then various, and sometimes contradictory, definitions have been given by different researchers. It is sometimes used as an economic term. Recently, it has involved relevant factors in psychological field, medical aspects and reflection of social adjustment to work, often resulting in productivity loss and increased costs for the organisation.

Absenteeism is defined by Eleanor V. Kennedy as “the failure of workers to report on the job when they are scheduled to work”, which means that any kind of absence, including leaving halfway through a scheduled shift or a working day, is regarded as an absence. Duane Evans(1945) made it more practical, counting only a full shift leave as an absence. He defines absenteeism as “the absence of a worker during a full shift that he is scheduled to work”.

Over a period of time, definitions of absenteeism have expanded, acquiring a broader scope. "Model of Employee Attendance"—proposed by Steers & Rhodes—tries to draw a disparity between voluntary absenteeism and the involuntary. In the model, absenteeism (or attendance) is described as a consequence of Ability to Attend and Attendance Motivation. Absenteeism causes loss in productivity for an organisation and leads to poor business performance. It is a customary behavior or status of short-term absence from the duty or obligation of onself.

Later, absenteeism was defined by Fitzpatrick and Huczynski (1989) as the absence from scheduled work. This definition does not include holidays as well as other planned leave of absence. However, absenteeism according to Johns (2007) is either approved or unapproved, which means planned leave should also be included.

Alternatively Ramsey, Greenidge and Punnett (2007) defined absenteeism as an implication of decision made by employees not to show up at their place of work during the time proposed by the organization to carry out their assigned duties. As long as the employee does not show himself at work when expected by the employer, no matter whether the leave is approved or not, or is partial leave or full day leave, it is defined as absenteeism.

Current absenteeism statistics

Absenteeism is a global problem that affects the productivity of employees and efficiency of organization across the globe such as Europe, America, Canada, Asia (China), Australia and South Africa.

Absenteeism in Europe

According to statistics provided by Global Investigations in 2010:

• The average employee absence rate in Europe is 7.4 days a year. Bulgaria has highest rate of absenteeism in Europe while Turkey has the lowest.
• In the UK, musculoskeletal issues, stress and mental health issues constitute the top 3 causes of long term sickness.
• In the UK, the average absence rate had increased by 19% in 2009.

Absenteeism in the U.S.

According to surveys conducted by Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index between 109875 full-time employees in the U.S. in 2011, full-time employees with chronic health problems take around 450 million more days off annually than those who don’t, of which the costs are estimated to reach more than $153 billion. The surveys were conducted based on the criteria of body mass index (BMI) scores. It turns out that full-time employees who are away from chronic health problems and are of normal weight take an average of 0.34 unhealthy days each month while those who do not suffer chronic health problems but are overweight/obese take an average of 0.36 unhealthy days per month. The surveys also show that as the quantity of chronic health problems goes up, the quantity of unhealthy days also goes larger. Among these employees, people who have three or more chronic health conditions and are of normal weight take 3.51 unhealthy days each month while those who have one or two chronic health conditions but are overweight/obese take only 1.08 unhealthy days. Findings are concluded that every unhealthy day means an approximately 0.31 days off.

Another survey conducted also by Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index shows that costs brought by absenteeism among employees who have chronic health problems vary between industries. Among all the 94000 surveyed employees who share 14 major occupations in the U.S., people with professional occupations, despite of nurses, physicians, and teachers, lead to greatest costs, totaling $24.2 billion annually. Followed by the professional occupations are managers and executives.

Absenteeism in Canada

In 2013, Nicole Stewart highlighted that in 2011 Canadian organizations witnessed an average rate of absenteeism of 9.3 days per full time employee. It outlined that absenteeism probably cost the Canadian economy as much as $16.6 billion in 2012. She also pronounced that despite the high cost of absenteeism, only 46% of Canadian organizations track employee absences.

Absenteeism in Asia

High rates of absenteeism pose problems in many parts of Asia. According to the Kronos Global Absence Survey taken in 2011, 71% of employees surveyed in China admitted to availing of sick leave when in good health. In India, this figure was 62%. The most prevalent reason for such behavior was stress, which comprised 60% in China and 44% of in India. In a survey conducted by the Chest Research Foundation (CRF) Pune and others in 2013, India ranked first in absenteeism due to asthma when compared with other nations in the Asia Pacific region. India also exhibits the highest absenteeism rate in Asia: it witnessed an average rate of absenteeism of 8.20 days per employee over a period of six months. Japan exhibited the lowest with an absenteeism rate of 1.49.

Absenteeism in China

High absenteeism in China could impact the global economy significantly. According to Kronos Global Absence Survey taken in 2011, China witnessed a 71% rate of absenteeism. Around 45% of employees expressed that if they were monetarily compensated for time off, this could have a positive influence on reducing absenteeism rate in China.

Absenteeism in Australia

According to the 2013 Absence Management & Wellbeing survey which was conducted by Direct Health Solutions(DHS), the average sick and carer leave was 8.93 days. Also, the cost of absenteeism caused by individual employees to the businesses surveyed was $2741 annually. Around 108 organizations and 450,000 employees participated. The survey highlighted that the median of absence was 8.0 days per worker annually, and manual workers on average took 9.2 days - 1.4 days longer than their non-manual counterparts. 71% of all the organizations surveyed regarded absenteeism as a major component of their business cost and more than half of the respondents found that single-day leaves were the most problematic. The most commonly used excuse for leave was responsibility towards home and family, and sicknesses ranging from cold/flu to mental health. Nearly 20% of the organizations reported that they were experiencing an increase of employees going to work while sick. The public sector seemed to experience this situation more often.. Throughout the year before the commence of the survey, more then 40% of the organizations witnessed an increased number of absence related to issues of stress, anxiety and depression: the stress predominantly originated from personal factors . Even though a majority of the organizations claimed to have been working on managing absenteeism, about 40% still underestimated the issue.

As industries were concerned, the Telecommunications and Utilities sector topped the list with 11.5 days of absenteeism per employee per annum, and the Contact Centre/Call Centre Industry ranked second with 10.9 days, costing more than $1 billion per year. The Transport and Logistics Industry witnessed an increase of 17%, and the absence rate in the Healthcare sector jumped to 9 days. Annual leave taken by Public Servants had dropped by 11% over a year, to 9.2 days. However, as stated above, employees in public sector tended to report for work unwell more often . It was reported that Mental illness-related absence in the public sector was twice of that in the private sector. It was concluded that employees in the public sector were under greater pressure to lower the levels of absenteeism. This tended to negatively affect their health, especially mental health.

Queensland ranked first in terms of sick leave with 11.1 days per annum per employee, followed by South Australia with 0.2 days difference. In New South Wales and Victoria, the absenteeism rate stood at 8.3 days and 8.7 days respectively, both of which were below the national average.

Absenteeism in South Africa

In South Africa there was a slight increase in absenteeism due to stress in 2009. More specifically, in the first half year, 3.4% of all sick leave incidents were because of stress, anxiety and depression, such illness in the psychological domain. It was a 0.3% increase compared to the same period in 2008.

Classifications

Planned versus Unplanned absenteeism

Planned absenteeism occurs when an employee gives notice to a supervisor prior to being absent. This kind of absenteeism is likely to be scheduled and may be a part of paid-time-off or vacation benefits. In such a situation, the employer has time to prepare for the employee's absence and thus losses can be minimized. In contrast, unplanned absenteeism usually lacks notification so that the employer does not have time to plan for the absence. It is most disruptive to a business. Whether or not an employee's notification may give sufficient time for the supervisor's preparation is a distinction between planned and unplanned absenteeism.

Culpable absenteeism versus Non-culpable absenteeism

Absenteeism also could be divided into culpable absenteeism and non-culpable absenteeism. Culpable absenteeism is caused by the factors within the employee’s control. In contrast, non-culpable absenteeism is mainly because of things falling out of the control of employee. As a properly structured 'attendance management policy', the differences between culpable absenteeism and non-culpable absenteeism should be clearly specified.

Voluntary absenteeism versus Involuntary absenteeism

Steers & Rhodes(1978) differentiated between voluntary absenteeism and the involuntary. In their model, absenteeism (or attendance) is described as a consequence of "Ability to Attend" and "Attendance Motivation". Ability to Attend refers to situational factors, such as illness or traffic jam (something that cannot be controlled by the employees), while Attendance Motivation is determined by 2 factors: (1) Employees’ job satisfaction; and (2) Pressure to Attend. These are derived from an individual’s own value or situation (such as economic condition, personal work ethics and commitment), and an organization's value or situation (such as work group norms and incentive/reward system). Henceforth, Ability to Attend referred to the term Involuntary Absenteeism, and Attendance Motivation to the term Voluntary Absenteeism.

Today, some researchers also distinguish between sickness absenteeism and involuntary absenteeism. The term sickness absenteeism appeared when researchers found that a sick employee can actually choose between taking leave or attending work (see presenteeism). They redefine involuntary absenteeism as “a reaction to distress caused by job demands”, which still refers to something that employees cannot control, such as overload, burnout and work-home conflict, and sickness absenteeism which is defined as not attending work due to poor health.

These definitions imply that voluntary absenteeism can be indicated (or measured) by the frequency, while involuntary absenteeism can be indicated by the lost working hour due to employee's absence. These definitions are in line with other studies, where the Frequency Index [FI] (how many times the employees take leave, regardless of the duration) is the closest indicator for Voluntary Absence and Time Lost Index [TLI] (how many working hours lost due to absence, regardless of the times the absence occurs) is the closest indicator for Involuntary Absence.

File:Avoidable absenteeism.jpg

Avoidable absenteeism

Physical absenteeism versus psychological absenteeism

Generally, absenteeism is defined as a physical absence from the workplace. However, organizations also need to pay attention to “brain absenteeism” of employees, a condition of employees that causes inefficiency or unproductive work. Psychological absenteeism can be voluntary and involuntary, planned and unplanned and culpable and non culpable. Brain absenteeism is often perceived as involuntary as humans tend to want to stay in control in control of their doings. However, psychological attendance to a task can be determined by many factors that can relate to motivation. Employee motivation can be determined by the level of job satisfaction and pressure to attend. If these levels are low, psychological absenteeism can be high which ultimately can lead to several risks and costs.

Truancy vs School refusal vs School withdraw vs Early leaving

According to Cunningham (2005), truancy is the absence of a student from school without the knowledge or permission of parents. Truancy is unauthorized non-attendance. Bond(2004) also mentioned fractional truancy which occurs when students arrive late or leave early, or spend entire days away from school.

Causes

The causes of absenteeism are considered to be versatile, and are affected by various elements such as the environment at work, employees' attitudes, benefits provided by government, natural factors, varying levels of commitment, an individual's health and the position of the economy. Absenteeism is also understood to be influenced by personal stress and the organizational environment. Absenteeism may be viewed as a sign of insufficient efforts at work or as a problem with management. The meta-analyses suggest that work strain is one of the largest causes of absence from work. More specifically, physical and psychological illness causing by work strains are significant reasons for absence either directly or indirectly.

Other factors that have given rise to absenteeism include an individual's social connections, discord at home or at work, low job satisfaction, unacceptable work dynamics, stress resulting from an overload of tasks, lack of clarity about specific functions, improper management conduct, lack of individual coaching or career progress and inadequate authority over duties. While an absent worker can put his reputation and his company at risk, some forms of absence, such as disability leave, performance of jury duty and the observance of religious holidays, are legally protected rights of employees and employers cannot terminate a job contract based on these reasons.

Absenteeism can also be contagious in the workplace, which is seen as a team-based cultural problem. Generally there is a tendency for few members to participate in voluntary absenteeism because people tend to imitate the attendance behaviour of their peers.

Possible Causes of Absenteeism could be mainly classified as follows:

Individual attitude

Individual attitude is a direct contributing factor towards absenteeism although many other causes can lead to absenteeism indirectly, through negative attitudes or states of mental health of employees. They include:

• Personal attitude

Attitude affects productivity and the rate of absenteeism. Therefore, employees having a positive attitude toward work are often on time for work. On the contrary, negative attitudes may lead to voluntary absenteeism.

• Coping strategy

Absenteeism could be a way to cope with a stressful job and such voluntarily action of taking day offs could lead to future good performance and well-being, hence the lost time balanced against later achievement, indicating a positive reason for being absent.

• Job Hunting

Employees may call in sick(or use other excuses) to go for a job interview or prepare for their resumes to visit a human resources director. That means they try to find more opportunities to switch to a new job and prepare for the job hunting during their working hours. Losing interest, being eager to get a promotion in a new area, or even being unsatisfied with their salary can be reasons why they choose to hunt for a new job..

• Age Composition

In accordance with the sociological theory, Bangali (2004) indicates that an employee's age, can be used to classify functions to be performed in the workplace both physically and intellectually. Research illustrates that the employees aged below 20 reflect the highest absenteeism rate, whereas employees aged above 50 reflect a decrease in absenteeism rate. If injured, disabilities of older workers tend to last longer and they are more probably to be absent or injured than younger workers. Additionally, a critical correlation was investigated by Rogers and Hertin between the use of sick leave and ages, suggesting workers with advanced age used more sick leave when compared to younger employees. The current socio-economic culture encourages retirement from active employment at the age of 65: people in the age group between 51 and 60 years display a fewer absent rate of absence because of the ill health retirement benefits (Weeks, 2004).

• Work - Related Attitude

The consulting company Purple Apple reviewed a study whether absenteeism would be influenced by the work-related attitudes. For the study purpose, the absenteeism reflects that the employee fails to report to their work. Job involvement and organizational commitment construct a conceptual model to predict absenteeism and this model was choosen to frame the study. This model conduct prediction of absenteeism on both factors of job involvement and organizational commitment. The assumption was based on the preconditions of employees with high levels of Job involvement and organizational commitment would have low levels of absenteeism. In other words, the job is very important for employees with high level of engagement. Therefore, they have the motivation to avoid unnecessary absences.

The study found that job involvement and organizational have different results when predicting absenteeism. In other words, the results reflect there is a weak correction between work-related attitudes and absenteeism. However, managers still need to consider this element when managing absenteeism. This is becasue the employee's personal preferences still have influences on the absenteeism rates. If managers could satisfy emotional needs of employees, employees would be willing to work and the absenteeism rates would be reduced.

Health condition

• Illness

On the list of commonly reported reasons for absenteeism, injuries, medical appointments and illness occupied the top 3 places. However, as reasons for absence are typically self-reported by the employee who was absent, empirically verifying whether illness is the true cause is difficult. Goetzel (2004) mentioned that “absenteeism as a result of health problems is clearly most prominent for musculoskeletal disease (mainly back pain) and mental disorders (especially depression)” For example, McDonald (2011) reported that among US workers with musculoskeletal pain 7% lost work days due to absenteeism. In the Netherlands, 46% workers with low back pain being treated by a physiotherapist were absent at least one day from work during the previous 6 weeks according to Hoeijenbos (2005). Another example of the prominence of mental disease is bipolar disorders. Almost half (43%) of the patients experiencing this disease were absent from work (on average 55 days per year), resulting in US$ 3,037 productivity costs per person, estimated by Hakkaart-van Roijen (2004). Further, even where an organization requires the absent employee to present evidence of their illness - traditionally in the form of a medical certificate from a registered medical practitioner - such evidence will not necessarily be proof of illness. This is because a medical practitioner does not owe an obligation to the employer to verify the legitimacy of an illness reported by the employee. Rather, the medical practitioner's duty is traditionally to ensure that the employee is sufficiently healthy such that the employee does not pose a threat to themselves or others in the workplace.

The several studies found by experts support the idea that illness can be seen as a general accept reason to miss the work or school study, and hardly ever people may doubt that illness is the good driver for absenteeism. Nicholson and Martocchio demonstrate that “illness absence like the ‘black hole’ of absence research as only small amount of research or theory can be found in this area.” In the practice, the absence due to illness is legitimate for all employees. Because of poor physical conditions of individual, they cannot pay full attention and take responsibility for their work and study. As a result, it is more likely gain much sympathy from boss and colleagues, may not cause severe punishment by company’s regulations. Studies conducted by Batenburg in the 1990s illustrated that those employees who smoke have relatively more chance to have absenteeism, injuries and accidents than their non-smoking counterpart. The impact of how long they had been smoking on absenteeism was also significant when former and current smokers are compared, suggesting relationship between smoking behaviors and absenteeism.

• Injuries

Accidents can occur at work or outside of work. Absenteeism is gauged by counting the number of days people skip work because of injuries. According to a European research survey conducted in year 2004, 89% of the participants reported no absenteeism day because of recent work-related injuries.Besides, 3% of individuals reported 1 to 15 days of absenteeism and 8% reported more than half month of absenteeism because of those injuries. According to Drakopoulos and Grimani, we have not focused enough on injury-related absenteeism and we have not examined it in connection with job satisfaction either. They believe that a detailed investigation of this issue might increase our grasp with regards to appropriate policy recommendations for reducing injury-related absenteeism. Recent works indicate that independent factors related to accidents are in fact linked to the discontent employees feel at work. Gyekye and Salminen (2006) noted that employees who felt great dissatisfaction at work often ascribed accidents to the atmosphere they experienced at work rather than their own nature.

Consider the questions about absenteeism arise from injury include examining the different types of injuries and possible timing and location leading factors. It is better to investigate the reactions by giving surveys to a range of people question on the days of work missed because of injuries. From different aspects such as Worker’s claim on compensation and employees participate in divisional report, both further assist the investigator to get the final results due to injuries.

• Mental Health

Serious emotional issues such as depression, anxiety and stress also amplify instances of absenteeism. As the research did by the National Institute of Mental Health in United States, depression is concluded to be the dominating reason of absenteeism. Findings based on Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index have shown that employees in the U.S. who have feelings of depression take 68 million more days off each year than those who don’t suffer depression.

Data from the United Kingdom Office of National Statistics show that 22.3% of employees experience mental health problems, or 15.4% if drug and alcohol abuse are ruled out. This indicates that, "employers should expect to find on average that nearly 1 in 6 of their workforce is affected by depression, anxiety or other mental health conditions... or around 1 in 5 if alcohol and drug dependency are included". United Kingdom Health & Safety Executive statistics for 2006/07 showed that work-related illness led to a loss of as many as 30 million days. Of those lost work days, 13.8 million days (which account for 46% of all reported illnesses), were caused by work-related stress, anxiety or depression. These three were the most reported complaints for each year in the UK Health & Safety Executive survey since 2001/02.

A 2014 meta-analysis of published literature on the incidence of mental health related sickness absence found in 'Social Democratic' countries an incidence density of 21.8/1000 worker-years for general mental illness among male employees and 31.5/1000 among female employees. The same study found that sickness absences related to mental disorders in 'Liberal' countries had an incidence density of 17/1000 work-years for men and 35/1000 worker-years for women, while countries in Latin America had an overall incidence density of 39.6/1000 worker-years. The review noted that the low sample size and variation in the years captured by the data between each study meant the results should be treated with some caution and more research in this area needs to be conducted.

Social influence

• Family duty (outside of work)

Including taking care of families. A major reason for absenteeism includes carrying on responsibility to family’s duties. Among the several causes of absent from the work, fulfill the child-care duty have become a persuasive reason in the workplace. The serious judgment of on-purpose absenteeism can be altered due to considerable reason. The practice may be regarded as appropriate; in the meantime, those workers who feel unfair in the workload would not trigger harsh emotions any more. This maybe in a certain consideration to gender based differences in absenteeism, Rogers and Hertin (1993) argue that in light of gender, women are considered as absent from their workplace more than men. Then, the total number of female employees may have contribute to a large impact on the high rate of absenteeism.

Possibility and lengths of absenteeism increase for those employees who have one child. This correlation becomes weaker when the employee has two or more children. One-child parents have high possibility that they have no experience in taking care of their child. Therefore, they are more likely to take few days off for their child.

• Financial Stress

Financial wellness is the level of fiscal stability including one's satisfaction level of his/her financial condition, objective amount of accessible financial resources that each individual possesses.

The higher the financial well-being, the lower the rate of absenteeism, as suggested by Joo and Garman. Moreover, poor financial management has been a great contributor for financial stress, and thus results in stress-related illnesses and more frequent absenteeism.

According to a research conducted by So-hyun Joo, the number of financially stressful events (such as overdue notice form creditors, a family member went to college) in the workers’ lives affects their frequency of absenteeism. Employers who hire workers in bad financial situation will suffer more employee absenteeism. It is also proved that employees' financial condition is highly related to absenteeism. Employees who are more financially stable (e.g. those who have regular saving, decent solvency ratio and fiscal planning) are less likely related to absenteeism behaviors than others

• Economic Recession

After lots of researches, the experts found that the labour absence can be effected by the economic recession. A macro-level study conducted by Mindy, S & Lisa, P tells that the unemployment rate is positively related with employees' absenteeism, these effects are delayed in time. Vahtera, Kivimaki and Pentti's found that the case of medically certified sick leave increased over a 3-year period after downsizing in organizations. It is also noteworthy that Westerlum observed that an economic downturn in Sweden resulted in a subsequent rise in long-term sickness absence.

• Local labor market conditions

The fact that absence rate is closely related to local labor market conditions, for instance, unemployment rates, had been proved in conceptual models of absence. It is suggested that low unemployment rate and a prosperous economy always mean greater job opportunities, which encourage job-hopping for employees. By contrast, high unemployment rate in the labor market might increase employees’ anxiety about job security. In this condition, employees have a tendency to improve attendance behavior to avoid unemployment. Markham (1985)pointed out there are fairly strong and negative relationships between unemployment rates and absenteeism at the organizational,regional and national levels. Markham maintained that “When unemployment is high, the positive relationship between absenteeism and dissatisfaction might disappear as the absence level is too depressed.” Theories of employee turnover provide the similar rationale that when job opportunities are limited, employees might be less likely to be absent and quit even when they are dissatisfied with the current work.

Organizational environment

• Bullying and harassment

Employees may be bullied or harassed by colleage or employers Bullying and harassment range widely from physical violence, excessive verbal criticism of work performance, and exclusion from social environment that may lead to psychological problem. Bullying and harassment may impact on four categories: work (absenteeism, lowered commitment, and intention to quit), physical (loss of sleep or drug and alcohol excessive consumption), emotional (depression and other psychological health problem), and affective domain (anxiety, fear, anger, and loss of confidence).

• Burnout and stress

Working pressure resulting from excessive workloads, high-intensive meetings/presentations and job dissatisfaction contributes a major part to the rate of absenteeism. Employees can experience a stress reaction to high job demands, which can lead to work overload, stress, and work-family conflict and increase absence ( Schaufeli et al., 2009). Work stress is likely to have detrimental influence on body and mental stability by causing disorders in digestive system, unstable blood pressure and anxiety neurosis etc. Employees who cannot handle stress or lack positive psychological capacities tend to avoid stressful meetings by making excuse of sickness or family issues.

• Unfairness at work

Employees may perceive an imbalance between the effort they make at work and the financial enumeration they receive (effort-reward) or an imbalance between their education and experience and salaries(status-reward) and seek to redress the balance through absenteeism.

• Disengagement

Employees do not want to contribute to the company due to lack of motivation. Surveys show that a high number of employees will leave their work if they have a poor relationship with their superiors. The length of employment also affects the rate of absenteeism. The longer the employee is with a company, the less unplanned leave occurs. The seniority an employee holds within an organizations also plays an important role in absenteeism. The more senior, and thus more responsible and engaged employees take less leave days while junior or newly hired staff are assumed to take more leave. According to a study conducted by the National Council on the Aging (NCOA) and the McDonald’s Corporation, 97% of employers surveyed stated that older workers are more reliable, more interested in taking on new tasks, had fewer on-the-job accidents, were prepared to engage with up-to-date change and technology and generally had lower absentee rate than younger workers. Additionally, Hirschfield (2002) conducted a research on the low-wage public sector employees and came to a finding that employees who perceived limited or few performance reward expectancies were more possibility to be absent from work very often. The correlation between skilled workers and absenteeism indicated that employees may have considered the absenteeism as a means of compensation, which is not extrinsically rewarded for the perceived working space contributions.

• Job dissatisfaction

Job satisfaction has a determinant influence on absenteeism. Job satisfaction is an employee's approach towards his contribution and the workplace. As defined by Robbins, Odendaal and Roodt (2003), it is the variation in compensation - between what an employees feels he should get and what he actually gets.'. The literature on absenteeism suggests that employees might choose to withdraw from an aversive work situation as this makes them dissatisfied (i.e., withdrawal chain; Sagie, 1998; Schaufeli, Bakker, & Van Rhenen, 2009). Research conducted by Obasan (2011) revealed that employee absenteeism and job satisfaction level is directly linked. His study pointed out several driving factors of job dissatisfaction which will finally lead to employees' absenteeism. Among those factors, seven main causes of job satisfaction are: Wage, Promotion opportunity, Work Interest, Colleague, Working environment, Fairness and Supervision. If employees are dissatisfied with their work, they will probably choose to change jobs or work environment and may take sick leave to attend a job interview at another company. Absences are generally considered as the result of a worker's choice between work and recreation. As outlined by Allen in 1981 and Böckerman and Ilmakunnas in 2008, employees would choose to be absent if they felt they would benefit more from not working. Thus, arguably, job satisfaction could be a predictor of absenteeism.

• Low participation in decision-making

If employees have insufficient authority to participate in decision-making, the job dissatisfaction may increase which will lead to absenteeism. It relates to the leadership of the company, communication processes and efficiency of trade unions. Job insecurity- Job insecurity is a main factor that lower one's working performance by enforcing overmuch workload or work demands. Behavioral withdrawal from the situation is a way to emotionally cope with such stressors, which can manifest itself in absenteeism. According to Thomas (2010), job insecurity is one kind of conflict between employer and employee as the employer is offering what the employee is not expecting. This discrepancy is stressful enough to evoke effort withdraw such as voluntary absenteeism and poor working performance. In relation to this point, the work experience express in tenure in years can be regarded as a predictor of employee productivity. The seniority has been found to have an inverse relationship with absenteeism in terms of frequency and total number of work-man days lost. The lower class of employees has higher levels of absenteeism comparing to higher educated employees by reason of education level. Consequently, the process can be facilitate through the promotion of knowledge sharing that may offer opportunities to meet employees' expectations (Rogers & Hertin, 1993).

• Types of contracts

Employers change their attitudes when they sign different contracts with companies. Recruitment type and contracts details are drives for absenteeism. If a company offers a permanent contract, the security of a permanent position for employees will generate absenteeism. Unclear terms or no linkages between employees’ performances evaluation and their absences in the contracts will increase absenteeism. Uncertain employment also results in high level of absenteeism. For example, verbal contract (a symbol of uncertain employment, leads to higher absenteeism rate than written contract.

• Size and type of company

The size of a corporation is directly related to absenteeism. Bigger firms operate more formally and provide more job-security. Therefore, there are few incentives for employees to be constantly present at the workplace. Small companies are reported to have a lower level absenteeism. Besides, absenteeism can vary depending on types of companies. Public organizations are more stable so they should have higher absenteeism rates.

• Location of company

If a company is in a big city , employees face heavy traffic and the transportation inconvenience may cause absenteeism.

• Team diversity

Attributes of demographic diversity such as age and gender have effects on absenteeism according to theories of social identity and similarity-attraction, assuming that people are more willing to cooperate with similar others, whereas distinctions in the team may result in conflicts and impaired job performance.Wegge et al. (2008) pointed out that age-heterogeneous teams had more health complaints working on routine tasks than on complex tasks. Börsch-Supan and Weiss (2008) found that age diversity was related to more absenteeism and declined performance in truck manufacturing. Also a few meta-analytic reviews showed negative effects of age diversity on job performance.At this point it should be noted that age diversity is not the same as the average team age, because it refers to the distribution of team members along the age continuum. Therefore, age diversity will be low if all team members are of similar age and age diversity will be high if team members strongly differ in age. In contrast, Gender diversity is negatively related to absenteeism. Several studies in male-dominated work settings revealed that increased gender diversity improves job performance. These favorable effects are attributed to beneficial personality traits; for instance, women are less aggressive and more socially skilled than men. O'Reilly and Williams (1998) concluded in their meta-analysis that gender diversity, in contrast to age diversity, might indeed be beneficial for male-dominated teams.

Culture

National culture affects absenteeism through values, behaviours, attitudes, ideas and choices ingrained into individuals of different cultures, influencing their perceptions of absences. Based on Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory, masculinity and power distance are negatively correlated to absenteeism. In masculine societies, priority is placed on work and the careers of individuals so employees try their best to turn up for work on a daily basis. Masculine societies are often materialistic and individuals work for advancement making it even less likely for absence. In high power distance cultures, superiors often have authority over employees and are able to enforce strict absence policies that might affect the careers of employees. In low power distance cultures, superiors are often more flexible and allow employees space as long as work is done.

Measuring Absence

Seccombe's research suggests that sufficient and accurate information about absenteeism can contribute to solving absence issues successfully. The organisation can use the information about absence to understand the underlying causes of absenteeism, prioritize the actions towards the employees or departments that have the high absenteeism rate and monitor organization's performance. Meanwhile, absence is widely used by employers to distinguish between shirkers and nonshirkers. When worker productivity cannot be perfectly observed, absenteeism rate can be recognized as a useful index.

Data Collection

One of the basic requirements of an absenteeism recording system is for the organization to be aware of every single absence event. If the data of absence is not accurate, managers cannot rely on the data to monitor and manage absenteeism effectively.To ensure that an absenteeism data collecting system would be applied effectively and consistently, the collection procedures should be straightforward and rigorous. A formal absence management policy should be communicated to employees clearly as well, to ensure that every employee would follow the procedure. In addition to the frequency of absenteeism, the causes of absence also should be recorded. A survey done by more than 350 organizations showed that more than a quarter organizations do not keep track of the causes of absence. Managers in those organizations found it difficult to tackle absence issues because they do not know the underlying causes and therefore cannot take actions towards it effectively. Therefore, recording causes is essential, in terms of helping the organizations manage the absenteeism well.

Measurement method

The most popular measurements in organisation: Frequency and time-lost measures are 2 of the most common measures of absence among over 41 measures of absence to use within an organisation. Frequency refers to short duration absence that are caused by controllable factors (voluntary). On the other hand, the measure of time-lost absence is considered to portrait involuntary absences.

In early years, there were several indices which were used as an approach to measure absenteeism in researches, such:

1. Frequency Index [FI]: how many times the employees take absences in a week, without taking into account the duration.
2. Attitudinal Index [AI]: how many times the employees take one-day-only absences in a week.
3. Other Reasons Index [ORI]: how many days of absence in a week, excluding certified sickness.
4. Worst Day Index [WDI]: number of workers who are absent on the “worst day” deducted by number of workers who absence on the “best day” in a week.
5. Time Lost Index [TLI]: how many days are lost per week for reasons other than leave.
6. Lateness Index [LI]: how many lateness is occured in any week.
7. Blue Monday Index [BMI]: number of people who are not present on Monday deducted by number of people who are not present on Friday in a week.

Today, in order to control and reduce absenteeism, a company should start with the continuous inspection of the statistics of absenteeism in all departments. This inspection enables the managers to identify which employees are absent frequently and also which departments have the highest absenteeism rate. There are two main ways of calculating absenteeism, as follows.

Absenteeism rate can be used to measure the frequency by which employees are absent from their work.  To illustrate, if the absenteeism rate is high, it probably indicates a low employee morale and the failure of the human resource management. The absenteeism rate can be calculated through the following formula: Absenteeism rate = Absent days per month ÷ (working days per month × number of employees)

For example, a firm works 24 hours a day in a year (365days). In an average month, a total of 15 employees work 30 days. Assuming 7 days are missed from work per month, the rate of absenteeism can be calculated as 7÷(30×15)=1.56%

Absenteeism rate for job category is defined as the number of staff absent from a specific job as a proportion of the total number of staff assigned to that job. The absenteeism rate for job category can be calculated based on the following formula:  Absenteeism rate (job category) = number of working days lost for specific job for specific period ÷ total number of staff working days available for that period.

For example, a company has a marketing department whose recent job is to advertise a new type of phone in one month. The firm works 24 hours per day in a year (365 days). There are 20 staff in the department working 30 days. Assume that the quantity of working days lost for this job in this month is 5 days. Thus, in the specific job, the sum of staff working days for the specific period is 30×20= 600. Consequently, the absenteeism rate for the job category is 5÷600=0.83%

Innocent absenteeism

A paper of study carried out in 2012 showed that the nature of the absenteeism is mainly divided into culpable and non-culpable absences. Generally, innocent absenteeism refers to non-culpable absences because of factors falling out of control of staff. According to the study of M. Elizabeth Keenan Mathews, Dinsdale & Clark LLP, non-culpable absences are caused by periodic, transient or “disability” defined in the human rights legislation (unrelated conditions are not included). Meanwhile, this type of absence should be permitted by a collective agreement or be granted in advance. Based on the guideline provided The Ontario Human Rights Commission should not consider the following conditions in terms of disability: 1. Temporary condition (expect for medical reason) 2. Not serious enough to threat life’s functionalities condition 3. Common public disease condition.

The Test for Non-culpable Termination of Absenteeism

A recurring pattern of intermittent absences or a single long period of absence is applied to justify termination for innocent absenteeism. Based on the study result of Keenan (2012), there is no "magic" number of days must an employee miss to justify termination, but absence(s) should excessive and beyond the average level of absenteeism among other employees. Employers should also prove that the attendance of that employee is unlikely to improve. Generally, it is insufficient to simply indicate the employee's previous record of poor attendance as demonstrative of the future. Even if accommodations are made, doctor's reports are valuable to establish the possibility of improvement in the predictable future if the absence relates to an illness or disability. Before determining to terminate the employment relationship, the employer must have warned the employee that failure to improve attendance and absenteeism excessive could result in termination. Finally, Employers must consider such things as reduced hours of work, alternate shifts, modified duties, or a transfer to another position within the employer's organization to determine whether an accommodation could result in improved attendance. Employers must prove an incapability to accommodate the employee to the point of undue hardship.

Results & Effects of Absenteeism

The unplanned and unexcused absences are much more costly than authorised absences since the organization is unable to find additional labor in a short time to occupy the position. Therefore, many employers have prescribed rules on how short of notice an employee is required to give before the absenteeism. The study in 2010 showed that unplanned and unexcused absences cost 8.7 percent of payroll in an organization.

While employers expect workers to miss a certain number of workdays each year, excessive absences can equate to decreased productivity and can have a major effect on company finances, morale and other factors.

At the same time, appropriate or reasonable absenteeism also brings benefits for both corporate and individual. Organization should provide employees the right of short term absence from workplace when employees are in a bad condition of physiology or psychology. Except for negative effects of absenteeism, organization needs to understand the benefits it brings as well.

Positive effect

Absence from work can be beneficial by way of reducing the risk of injuries, since they will no longer be working while their physical or psychological capacity is diminished or when they are unable to focus due to legitimate reasons. Additionally, short term absenteeism not only boosts the employee's capability to deal with pressing non-workplace commitments but also contributes to releasing pressure from work and to promoting further productivity and performance, especially for management staff. According to the Commonwealth Government workers survey, 49% of interviewers experienced an incidental illness or injury that was associated with their work.

From the organization's point of view, absence of ill staff can protect other employees from contracting infectious diseases: they would prefer to maintain a productive environment. Absent employees who tend to individual emergencies are likely to benefit from greater job satisfaction.

Negative effect

From the position of employees, they will suffer income losses, and need to bear the extra cost due to causes of the absence such as illness, unexpected accident or personal business. On the other hand, managers incur loss of working effectiveness, payroll and training expenditure of training temporary staff and the associated lower productivity and output level a well as the potential reduction of customer amount. Furthermore, the administrative costs will also be generated on scheduling and employing efforts. Colleagues suffer pressure because of overloaded work capacity and approaching deadline pressure, which associate with dissatisfaction of company and disappointment of working environment. The Government somehow have to take the innocently higher costs of social security payments.

Effect on individuals

Absenteeism can lead to negative effects on individuals. Consequences could include a lower pay due to less work done. When the absentee returns to work after leave, they could feel unfamiliar with the current workplace environment, and thereby possibly increase the occurrence of errors and accidents. Absenteeism could develop into a habit.

According to Staw and Oldham in 1978, absenteeism is a form of detachment from worry or stress of jobs. Employees who continue working when sick increase the probability of mistakes. Thus absence from work may reduce stress to some extent and be functional for an individual. Employees absent from work are more likely to fulfill their duties to family and this may lead to positive benefits for the individual.

Effect on family

From Goodman and Atkin (1984) research, absenteeism can also have influences on the family which is another type of social analysis. It could be helpful to solve family problems such as health, marital, or child-related matters. In the situation that the incomes are increasing, absenteeism would be a way to let the family to have leisure activities together. For the couples both earn incomes, it would give security to the other partner’s job and earnings. However, absenteeism could negatively affect the amount of incomes and bad reputation of the worker would be resulted with high frequency of absenteeism. This will lead to negative influences on the members of the family. Sometimes, it could exacerbate family disputes.

Effect on other employees

In most of the companies, employees are interconnected and corporate with each other to accomplish their work. Therefore, the impact of absenteeism could be widespread among other employees. In a cooperative project, the employee who continue to work need to put more efforts on the project to compensate potential risk of incomplete project on time as a result of someone’s absenteeism. This extra effort could evoke negative responses from those employees.Moreover, the employee who show up for work may under pressure as they were left along and cannot fit into the organization very well. All of these negative outcomes caused by one person’s absenteeism will reduce other employees’ working enthusiasm and shake morale.

Yet the absenteeism has a positive side on the absentee's co-workers to some extent. Goodman and Atkin (1984) pointed out that the co-workers will have additional opportunities to improve and attain more skills, experience further roles that were originally reserved for the absentee, thereby increase the job variety. This also provides the opportunity for those co-workers to receive additional income due to working overtime to fill in for the absent employee.

"So You're not coming in Tomorrow Bud"

Effect on customers

Absenteeism may impact customers' experiences and decisions to trade with a company. The employees are representatives of the company they work for. Their absence may promote suspicion and distrust of the company over the long-term.

Effect on Business

In a cooperative project, everyone in the project is a necessary link in work process both on the technique aspect and manpower aspect. Thus, the absence of employee is frustrating as it will slow the schedule down and even to terminate the project, which will place a big burden of cost for the company.

"Withdrawal model" is a psychology model that refers absenteeism as individual withdrawal from dissatisfying working conditions. Empirical studies shows a negative link between absence and job satisfaction. Absenteeism is costly to organizations. According to study of DeLonzor(2005), employee lateness cost US business more than three billion dollars each year. Navarro and Bass(2006) stated that employee absenteeism cost business nearly 15 per cent of payroll. And it cost 50 to 200 per cent of the leaving employees' first year salaries to find replacement. Research shows that over one trillion dollars is lost annually due to productivity shortages as a result of medical-related absenteeism, and that increased focus on preventative wellness could reduce these costs. The line between psychological and medical causation is blurry, given that there are positive links between both work stress and depression and absenteeism. Depressive tendencies may lie behind some of the absence ascribed to poor physical health, as with adoption of a "culturally approved sick role". This places the adjective "sickness" before the word "absence", and carries a burden of more proof than is usually offered.

Katz, Kochan, and Weber (1982a)(1982b) have developed a data set on manufacturing plants that includes a variety of industrial relations indicators. A significant coefficient is appeared for the absenteeism in respect to quality and a non-significant relationship appeared for direct labor efficiency. According to the study of Katz et al, (1982), another important relationship is positively related between absenteeism and quality, and negatively related to labor efficiency. Higher absenteeism is linked with lower labor efficiency. Based on the research of Katz, Kochan, and Weber (1982) and Katz, Kochan, and Gobeille (1982), when absenteeism occurs, the replacement workers are not familiar with the unique properties of the machinery and physical environment. Meanwhile, existing staffs are unfamiliar with the work habits of the replacement worker. Therefore, low labor efficiency would occur. Absenteeism leads to recruitment changes that also affect the familiarity and cooperative level of work groups. Based on the report of Goodman and Leyden (1991), the particular knowledge and skills that group members have mastered for specific job, staff, and workplace patterns is familiarity. Less familiarity of skills and knowledge are in close relation to the reduction in productivity in theory.

Absenteeism rates will be relatively higher with low wages payment and high occupational illness according to Allen(1981)'s study, and a labor-supply adjustment is needed to combat wage and employment hazards. On the other side, low vigilance activities may be eliminated or reduced through absenteeism. After an absence, the probabilities for an accident could be reduced as the worker may return to the job with renewed attention to the work activity. Based on the study conducted by Moch and Fitzgibbones, absenteeism of more essential employees had adverse impact on productivity. Therefore, fewer automated production was more assailable to the adverse influence of absenteeism. The misuse of sick leave for absenteeism is counted to be a predominate issue in organizations where their employees does not sustain the standard of honesty and incorruptibility or these values are taken for inconsistent with the corporate values and norms of the institution. Staffs utilize the means and learning from each other will foster unsound tendencies in the overall organization. Therefore, this would bring difficulties to manage the issues in accordance with the corporate institutions and policies as well as leading to a negative impact to the organization's culture.

Effect on society

Evaluating the costs of absenteeism can help quantify its impact from an organizational perspective, but ignores the social perspective. For instance, society can benefit by way of needing less mental-health facilities if absenteeism can release job stress and mental-health problems. It may also reduce unemployment. Additionally, it may promote workers' participation in community and political processes.A significant negative to society is the loss of productivity within a company.

Resolutions & Suggestions

Resolution of Absenteeism from the view of organisation

A 2010 meta-analysis of published research on savings and costs regarding disease control and wellness programs in the workplace suggested that for every dollar spent in implementing such programs, on average $3.27 on medical costs were saved.Further, of the 22 studies which viewed employee absenteeism considered by the meta-analysis, the average program costs were $132 per employee p.a. The average savings, which were US$294 per employee p.a., doubled the amount of input costs. After adjusting for programs that did not report costs, the average return on investment was 2.73 (or $2.73 saved for every $1 spent) and all but one study showed some reduction in absentee days. This indicates that, at least for organizations with over 1000 employees (which made up over 90% of the studies considered by the meta-analysis) effective steps can be taken to reduce the rate, and therefore costs of absenteeism. There are many measures that organizations can take to reduce the absenteeism causing by lack of motivation. First, improve employee’s morale. Make efforts to build up an inspiring working environment where employees can enjoy coming to work. Organizations should incorporate "fun" into the workplace that will motivate employees to work efficiently. Second, make effort to improve interpersonal relationships in the organisation. Especially for an HR manager, spare time to initiate conversations with employees to figure out how to motivate them to come to work voluntarily and what may create negative motivation for them to come to work. Third, increase managers’ authoritative abilities. Employees can be less likely to be absent from work if they know the absence will lead to adverse impacts. Finally, improve working conditions. Make efforts to create a comfortable, healthy and safe environment.Make sure employees are working in a safe and healthy environment.

• Suggestions on incentives--Providing more incentives

There is some evidence that withdrawal behaviors such as lateness, absenteeism and voluntary turnover are related in a progressing sequence. If mild withdrawal behaviors are predictors of severe withdrawal behaviors, organizations concerned about absenteeism can view these actions as an early alarm and take remedial action. Giving incentives for good attendance is a useful way to reduce absenteeism.

Incentives can be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic incentives are related employees’ spiritual needs. According to research conducted by Scott, D., Robers, R. W., and Markham, S. E.(1985), personal recognition and encouragement from managers decreased absenteeism by 36.9 percent, which was the most effective positive attendance improvement program. Studies have shown that collective autonomy has a negative relationship with absenteeism within work teams, but has a positive impact on team potency. Routine tasks reduce absenteeism, while non-routine work that require workers to face frequently changing expectations lead to imprecise tasks and therefore encourage absenteeism.

Extrinsic incentives refer to working conditions, including financial and non-financial rewards. For instance, companies can provide gifts, paid time-off and full-attendance bonuses to employees, all of which encourage active participation from employees. Gamboa, V. U. and Pedalino, E. (1974) also showed that behavior modification could decrease absenteeism. They constructed an experimental design using a lottery incentive system as intervention compared with 4 adjoining plants. The result indicated that there was significantly negative relationship between the experimental group intervention and absenteeism. Companies can also offer career opportunities and effectively design jobs. Non-financial rewards are beneficial for companies because they do not cause a direct cash outflow.

• Making the job more interesting

Boring, menial and repetitive jobs may cause employees to be reluctant to come to work and therefore may increase absenteeism.

A job that requires skills variation may have more appeal for employees. By requiring a variety of different activities employees can be challenged and have greater sense of competence. Task significance can also motivate employees. In addition, the existence of autonomy and feedback from the employer might also able to make the job more interesting and challenging.

Suggestions on regulation and management

• Setting up an attendance record system

Once human resource managers have an understanding of the absenteeism measurement techniques, they can set up a record system for each employee, which keeps a record of the reason and the duration for each case of absenteeism. As a result, it is helpful for managers to identify causes of absence and measure absenteeism associated with ill health. Managers should also learn to identify the trend of certain absenteeism with the record. It is important to see whether there is a particular department or position that shares the highest percentage of the absenteeism. To illustrate, through analysing the record of attendance, managers can find out the main reasons of absenteeism and take pertinence actions to control absenteeism. For example, if the high rate of absenteeism is due to illness, managers should organize regular health checks. However, if the high rate of absenteeism is caused by rigid working hours, managers should adjust work schedule and make it more flexible. Moreover, providing monthly feedback to employees based on the record helps them alert employeese that their attendance is being monitored. The absenteeism rate should also be compared within the industrial average.

• Training managers

In order to reduce absenteeism, managers should not only focus on employees, but also consider about themselves. Training managers may seek to improve employees' professional ability so that they can identify their obligations. Additionally, if managers have a deep understanding of their obligations, they are able to improve working culture, reduce the dissatisfaction of employees and implement clear policies. For example, if the overall rate of absenteeism is high in a company, which is probably because of employees' confusion about the attendance policy and unawareness of the consequences of frequent absenteeism. In this situation, the implementation of penalties will lead to employees’ dissatisfaction. However, if managers can implement a clear policy and continually stress on the attendance policy, employees will pay enough attention to this problem and there are fewer complaints when they face the punishment

Further, Leader Motivating Language is an essential tool to help boost attendance rate of employees, discovered by Jacqueline, M & Milton M. Leader-motivating language is an efficient communication attitude and tool in training investment and curriculum design.

Meanwhile, managers are advised to monitor long leave data to ensure employees are taking adequate recreational breaks. This is because there is some evidence that suggests there is a link between the taking of annual leave and reduced employee absenteeism.

• Feedback intervention

Feedback intervention refers to actions aimed to provide information concerning a few aspects of one’s task performance. Feedback intervention in workplace, which means offering employees feedback that informs them of their actual absenteeism rate compared to their co-workers, is an effective approach to reduce absenteeism. This is due to the self-serving bias, a phenomenon that employees intend to overstate the absenteeism of their co-workers and understate their own absenteeism. Thus, it is probable that an intervention that reflects one’s own actual absenteeism as well as one's work-group could reduce self-serving bias and improve employees’ attendance rate. A meta-analysis also found that feedback interventions are effective to improve work performance by nearly 0.4 of a standard deviation. Although feedback is practical for promoting attendance behavior, it does not itself provide employees with a reasonable comparative standard of absenteeism. In this regard, Gaudine (2001) suggested that including a goal-setting intervention into a feedback intervention could be a more effective measure to reduce absenteeism.

• Establish an action plan

After a company has set up the framework and policies, company needs to set up an action those policies will be carried out consistently and effectively: - Educate and communicate: Communicate to its employees about the attendance policy to ensure that everyone has a good understanding of it. - Monitor: Keep track of employees attendance records and reasons of absence. - Counsel: Meet the employees who have attendance problem and clarify company’s expectation. - Follow up: If the absence rate of a particular employee is high or overall rate is high, figure out the reasons and ask for HR department’s support. - Corrective action: After figuring out the reasons of high absence rate, company should revise its policies accordingly ,in order to reduce the future absence rate.

• Employee Assistance Programs (EAP’s)

Assisting employees to solve home, work and personal issues is the central target of employer sponsored support systems, therefore employees could perform effectively and efficiently at the workplace. Such program is not focusing neither on incentives nor on penalties to monitor their absence, but it is concerning about how to assist employees to solve their family or work issues so that they could contribute to their work effectively without any concerns thereby decrease absence. Professional counselors are the people who perform such services voluntarily and confidentially. One study shows that a 66% reduction in absenteeism resulted from conducting an intervention program with professional counselors in UK postal workers. Nevertheless, it does not affect the organizational commitment or job satisfaction recorded.

A wide range of problems are included in Employee Assistance Programs:

1. Workplace problems involving conflict, violence and re-structuring
2. Home problems involving family conflict, sickness and emotional issues

In Australia, established alcohol and drug dependency programs is the foundation of EAP’s, however EAP’s has broadened the range of problems they can assist with. In the condition of protecting individual personal information, the organization could analyze the causes of absenteeism by dealing with volume of problems related to employee’s home and work issues. Issues with work organization or supervision may be showing up. Some EAP’s have the ability and are willing to offer programs.

Employers need maximize their gains as many as possible to them by utilizing EAP’s. Capitation based fees may limit EAP involvement seriously therefore employers need to consider the value that EAP’s professional and skilled providers could add to the organization. The service experience and expertise determine the input and impact of the quality. The low rate of utilization caused by under promotion and lack of referral is one of the disadvantages of EAP's. Besides that, willingness to get involved, cost factors and attractiveness are also critical.

• Offering flexibility

A survey carried out in 2011 showed that more than 5 million U.S. employees calling in sick to avoid their commutes. Rush-hour traffic forced them to use up their sick leave. Offering employees more flexibility work hours allows them to have more control over their schedules and the ablility to select and swap shifts.Sometimes employees are forced to take absence due to unpredictable plans clashing with their work. The flexibility on work will make employees choose schedules which are compatible with their needs and preferences. All of these outcomes provide for a better working situation. Flexible working hours may also provide an incentive to employees to stay with the company in the long term and reduce overall staff turnover. Offering flexibility not only reduces the over wasted time and unproductive time but also increases the staff engagement ,motivation, morale and helps retain the key employees.

Another policy used to reduce absenteeism is to increase overtime hours. A company can allow employees to work beyond weekdays only if they had full attendance in weekdays for that week. Many employees are willing to work overtime because it can increase their pay. The policy is attractive to employers as it helps reduce absenteeism and gain extra man-hours at the same time. But the policy is also risky and may have negative effect on attendance. After working in weekdays, employees are tired. Their fatigue increases by working overtime and they need a day or two to relax. So there would be more absenteeism on weekdays due to the fatigue. According to this situation, company managers should apply a policy to control the number of days worked by employees to help them reduce fatigue and thus help reduce absenteeism. Such policy makes employees have regular time off after doing their work for a number of days without punishment by the company to reduce their fatigue and absenteeism. In this way, absenteeism is reduced because employees are motivated by overtime pay and they also have regular and compulsory rest time to recover.

• Promoting fairness in the workplace

Practising 'basic requirements of fairness' may reduce the rate of absenteeism, which is stated by Wilton(2013,p.370) as an individual and informal expression of employee’s dissatisfaction.More over, fair environment will promote fair competition among the employees because they know they are scored by system. Following a disciplinary or grievance process can be a method for dealing with issues fairly. It includes the following elements:

1. Both employeeer and employees should be involved in decision making, should not be late for any meeting without reasonable explaination.
2. Employers and employees are requested consistent behavious.
3. Employers should not make any decision about an issue before going through an investigation in collecting facts.
4. Employees have the rights to be informed and response about the problem before emplyers make any desicion.
5. Employers should help employees to feel safe by accompanying them in any disciplinary meeting.
6. Employees have the rights to appeal against decisions within the organisation.

• Concerning about employee well-being

Well-being at work is defined as creating an environment that promotes contentment to employees. There are a few ways to promote workplace well-being, such as maintaining a safe and stable working environment, having a respectful relationship between co-workers and manager, creating a psychological contract and a job design for each employee, supporting human resource policies and practices, providing rewards for satisfying work, and creating a supporting environment physically and mentally both inside and outside of the work place.

A good job coaching program can also be part of concerning employees’ well-being, especially for manufacturing industries. Through job coaching, work-related injuries can be reduced and, therefore, reduces involuntary absenteeism.

Except the working environments, employers can focus more on employees'individual health, including physical well-being, mental well-being,balance between work and home and economic condition. The reason that why focusing on employees' individual well-being can help is that happy and healthy workers will be more willing to attend work everyday on time. Employees' psychological stability and capabilities will influence their manners to deal with workplace stress even instance of stress-related illness. Employees with positive psychological capacities (e.g., self-efficacy, high-hope, optimism, resilience, etc.) tend to view potential work stressors as achievable challengers rather than as adversity. They prefer to react in a more productive way to solve the obstacles and hardship rather than paying most of their attention on the existence and nature of the problem. As a result, psychological stable and mentally healthy employees tend to display lower level of blood pressure and reported job stress that lead to less instances of stress related illness and lower levels of involuntary absenteeism. Even though the employees wellness strategies may be expensive to implement, they can have net positive impact on the business.

• Workplace stress strategies

Absenteeism is considered as one of the most visible and direct costs of workplace stress on employers. Accordingly, the level of absenteeism should indicate how the work-induced stress significantly affecting the profit margin and routine regulation to the management teams. The idea of "stress management" is another mode that can generate critical barriers. Generally, the absentees are either sick or malingering to ask for temporary leave. Before changes, we should know that some absenteeism of "malingerers" are caused by occupational stress while some "genuinely" sick leave are caused by stress, which has contribute to either mental illness or psychological illness. Currently, the person environment fit model is referred as one of the highly applied model of stress in occupational aspect. It generally provides two main methods to reduce the occupational stress experiences. On the one hand, through the improvement and reinforcement of the technical skills and strengths of individuals; On the other hand, by reducing occupational stressors intensively.

Here, employers and managers play a significant role in providing assistance to employees in overcoming difficulties to eliminate distracting factors and stay focus on their position responsibilities. As a result, some interventions of stress management should be provided specifically. In light of the theory that Ivancevitch has put forward, according to the particular targeting point on the stress cycle, main interventions can be classified into three categories as following.:

1. Reducing stressors in work place;
2. Facilitating employees to improve appraisal capability and modify their appraisal method in specific stressful situation;
3. Helping employees to resolve the stressful consequences more effectively .

The strategy of "Quality of Working Life" indicates a simple method of workplace evaluation in a reversing prospect, which is via the workplace survey tool development. More, specifically, it provides a channel and opportunity for addressing the issues and developing specific practical plans. Additionally, other sophisticated tools like "Occupational Stress Index" and "Occupational Stress Indicator" can be applied to investigate useful findings and outcomes in accordance with sufficient resources and interpretative techniques. Many companies lay out large amount of expenses on stress management as well as employee stress training since they realize the significance role of these factors in some industries and workplaces. The skill of conflict management and conflict resolutions are valuable techniques for both employers and employees.

Costs of Absenteeism

That "unscheduled absences hurt" wrote by M.Michael Markowich does not simply refer to the costs on paying vacation and sick time in organizations.According to a Bloomberg BNA survey, the percentage of unscheduled absenteeism of employees went up to 0.7% of work days in 2012, 0.1% more than that of 2011. In Canada, the time loss resulted from absenteeism was enormous, each employee in non-unionized operation contributes 5 days per year and in workforce related organisation it is 10 days. Some European countries even have a worse situation that the annual rate is around 20-25 days. From the survey on the Total Financial Impact of Employee Absences,Mercer,June2010,the total cost that absenteeism brought accounts for 35 percent of base salary.Among the 35%,there are 26% belonging to planned absences,and the rest of the proportion results from the unplanned and extended absences which are the major ones employers want to reduce. According to several estimate, absenteeism in U.S. even costs approximately 9% of payroll. Direct cost and indirect cost can be considered in Absenteeism.

Direct costs

Direct costs coming from absenteeism is a huge amount of money loss from companies and organizations. According to a survey conducted in 112 organizations across Australia, it shows that "Australia has to pay about $28 billion for absenteeism per annul in lost flowing employees". "The telecommunications and utilities industry and the travel, tourism and hospitality industry, has got the highest absenteeism rates which indicates that the worker has an average of 13 sick days per year each". The inability to plan for these unexpected absences leads to the result that companies hire the temporary workers for the vacancy and pay overtime wages to their regular workers. And also the larger organisations and companies tend to have the higher absence level. According to the survey, "The organizations which have more than 1000 employees have average absence days of 10.8". The larger company usually have a larger and complicated system to regulate the employees. It is more difficult to observe and manage the problems and issues of employees which will cause the employees flow out of the organisation. Absenteeism has become a serious organisational issue and human resource problem. It not only affects the development and implementation of organizational plans and activities , but also impedes the progress of human resource department.. The costs can be ascribed to many reasons. The wasted wages paid to leaving employees, high cost fees for managing the absenteeism and overtime payment for the temporary and flowing employees leads to it .The driect costs of psychological absenteeism can lead to safety risks, work related injuries and death. Many workplace hazards are present in all organizations premises. These can be divided into two types. Physical and mechanical hazards which are perhaps unavoidable in the construction and mining industry.

Indirect costs

Direct costs are visible for the company to know from their accounting book . The indirect costs are also jeopardizing the operation of the company.Absence of employees will bring poor quality of good and low productivity of the whole line. And the time spent on training new staff , the risk issues coming from the new employees,the health issue caused by overtime working leads to unpredictable costs. The new employees will spent more time getting used to the system and the current workers are easily getting fatigue due to long working hours for absenteeism. Survey shows that" Absenteeism is 7.8% per year in companies with less fatigue issues and 8.9% in companies with more fatigue issues". The health problems aroused by the overtime working ,like cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disease, and diabetes weaken the power of working ability and morale to meet the customer demand. Poor working morale and poor union relationship is also the sacrifice of absenteeism. Survey shows that Absenteeism rate is much higher in poor working morale and poor union relationships.The other hidden cost factors are the supervisor time dealing with the absence, time spent for replacement of leaving workers, fees for external agencies providing help for absenteeism and costs of HR fixing issues on absenteeism. The invisible costs spent on dealing with the problems caused by absenteeism make thousands of dollars flowing out of the company eventually.The occurring of absenteeism not only cause the running off of the employees , but also affecting the numbers of customers taken by the leaving workers who have a good relationship with the customer. When an employee leaves the company for a new job and a much better salary, the clients' information written down in his notebook will be taken away to the new company.

The impacts of absenteeism are most prominent especially when dealing with interdependent tasks. Multiple complex, technological and specialized operations or procedures can not be conducted without complete staff assignment and complement. Without right person in the right place, productivity will reduced and workloads may reinforce on other staffs especially in teams. Manipulations cannot be accomplished successfully without sufficient resources, skills and experiences. On the aspect of service industries, customers cannot fulfill their needs of particular services provided by absent staffs, which will probability result in reduction of service provisions, dissatisfaction from customers that may damage public perception of organization reputation and corporate image to a great extent. Psychological absenteeism can harm the reputation of a company through the loss of productivity. A high tolerance for psychological absenteeism damages public perception and corporate image. In terms of recruitment, this may attract unproductive people to join the workforce which deteriorates the reputation of high quality workforce of a company.

How to reduce the costs of absenteeism

1 Reducing payroll expense

Providing managers with regular ,accurate reports of absenteeism will help find the root causes and reduce the fees. Payroll expense can be reduced by selecting appropriate employees to cover the absence."According to the survey, Circadian’s Shiftwork Practices 2005, the rate of absenteeism is the lowest when specialised softwares are used to manage the scheduled tasks in company"..Providing enough training and reasonable compensation plan for the employees will help improve their skill level and performance at optimal level. Making the employees know the expectation and deadline in their work can reduce the delay and hiring an independent contractor will reduce the fees hiring an official employee onboard.

2 Improving the productivity

By improving the predicability of the workload , the employee will have a more predicable career to make them more dedicated and productive. Using sophisticated rules to manage the workflow will help reduce unexpected absences and administrative burdens. A reduction in partial shift absence will help increase the productivity to reduce the costs of absenteeism. Appropriate communication within the organisation will help find the employee issues to avoid lower productivity and getting feedback from the clients will help improve the quality of products and services.

3 Reducing compliance risk

Employees leave due to disability or family and medical issues can lead to excess payroll cost to cover the absence of the workers. By using the absence accounting methods and software to record the time spent on the absence will help manage the absence of employees to reduce the unnecessary costs. According the survey, "Costs wasted on the leaves estimated to be 21 billion per year for the organisations in U.S".

4 Reducing disruption to the business

Employee self scheduling tools and Employee self service options can help employees to better manage their working shifts flexibly contributing to the less absenteeism. Using a sophisticated management system can assist managers find out the problems of the employees and make correct decisions .Moreover, the absenteeism can be treated as decrease of labor force. To avoid unreasonable absenteeism would meet production requirement and production quality. Also, the managers have to spend a lot of time to check the excess of absenteeism. The manager's work efficiency would be reduced, then the normal operation would be effected. In manufacturing factory, the workers absent in a key position would shut down the product line. The absenteeism may resulting the grievances from other employees, because they have to working overtime in order to fill the production shortage of absenteeism.

5 Better management of health costs

Overtime working and poor staff scheduling can lead to poor employee health. "According to circadian's Health in Extended Hours Operations study, overtime workers have increased healthcare risks, like gastrointestinal disorders, musculoskeletal problems, and sleep disorders". The health problems will force them to leave work and increase the costs of absenteeism to the company. Appropriate disease management and health risk assessment will help employees better find and solve their health problems and reduce absenteeism. According the survey, "a company of 5,000 employees focusing on reducing diabetes and cardiovascular rates for their overtime working employee can reduce approximately $400.000 health costs".

6 The adoption of the Human Resource Planning (HRP) Approach

Scott(1982)proposed that for a predicted level of absenteeism, human resource planning approach is important in reducing the cost of absenteeism. The usefulness of HRP approach in reducing absenteeism costs lies in its identification of the most effective methods of replacing absent employees. There are three prerequisites for the success of this adoption. Firstly, there must be measures developed for absenteeism, also the attendance data are collectable. Secondly, it is able to calculate the probability of jobs vacancy. Thirdly, complete a cost analysis for alternative strategies of filling job vacancies. After getting the information, HRP approach could help to select the most effective replacement strategy out of other alternatives. Moreover, the HRP approach should be used in combination with programs which are able to discipline the company’s absence policy abusers as well as the programs that reward employees with high attendance. Even though, some research say that one of very effective ways to control absence is to give a dismissal threat, compared with positive incentives, penalties may cause some negative effects such as morale reducing, workplace conflict, productivity reducing and tense relations in working. We need to consider the adverse outcomes before we use penalties. We need to ask does the benefit of the threat of penalties overweight the cost of negative effect of that? Nevertheless, by doing this, management could be more aware of and sensitive to the inherent costs associated with absenteeism, thus it is more likely to develop a highly functional monitoring system to reduce the rate of absenteeism and contribute to the construction of more effective absenteeism control programs.

7 Promoting absentee replacement schemes

Replacing an experienced worker by a new one in a station leads to a learning curve for the new worker. The new worker are more likely to be slower and to make more mistakes. The first cycle time takes 3 to 15 times the standard time of a station. Thus, the replacement operator has a good probability of becoming a bottleneck and dictating the pace for all the line, adversely affecting the line throughput and increasing absenteeism costs. Promoting reasonable replacement schemes is an effective measure to reduce loss caused by absenteeism. For instance, the following two major absentee replacement schemes are suggested: (1) Central reserve management: A central office maps the absent stations at the beginning of each shift, and sends a reserve person with assembly directions to each one of the unassigned stations. (2) Segment reserve management: In each line segment, a foreman is permanently assigned as a reserve worker, who helps to speed-up slow workers and fills in for the missing workers. When there are no absentees in the segment, the reserve worker helps another segment on different stations to increase their potential efficiency. More workers should be used to support segments with more than one absentee and are needed in an emergency pool for waves of absenteeism .

8 exception for the self-employed

Studies usually focus exclusively on workers in paid employment. Research on work absence of the self-employed is thus very scarce. For the self-employed, there exist some studies for absence from work for specific groups such as farmers and for long-term disability. In a comprehensive study of sickness absence of self-employed individuals, several risks such as age and psychological diseases affect the sick leave durations of self-employed in a similar way. Whereas other factors (such as high unemployment) work differently. Self-employed are less frequently absent from work than paid employees, but they do not specifically investigate work absence and its determinants. So the incentive structure regarding sickness absence differs strongly between paid employees and self-employed persons. Principal-agent problems resulting from asymmetric information between paid employees and their employers that may affect absenteeism of paid employees do not play a role for the self-employed who are their own employers. Since the self- employed do not receive any sick pay for the first couple of days of absence. These distinct differences in incentives should result in lower absence from work of self-employed individuals than of paid employees.

9 OH&S

The OH&S compliance measures are aimed reduce the risks in the workplace. It is designed to protect the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment as it understands that organizations have a duty of care to make sure that workers may be affected by the companies doings. The companies thus legally have moral obligations to protect their employee’s lives and health. Safety measures thus reduce the costs of psychological absenteeism.

See also

• Absentee
• Organizational Justice
• Presenteeism
• Saint Monday
• See a man about a dog
• Job security
• Workplace wellness

External links

• healthways.com

• dhs.net.au

Category:Legal terms Category:Grounds for termination of employment Category:Industrial and organizational psychology Category:Working time Category:Workplace