On the extent and reduction of avoidable absenteeism: An assessment of absence policy provisions.

Abstract

This field study of employees (A' = 1,292) of a public utility company had several objectives: (a) to identify that portion of employee absenteeism that is avoidable; (b) to compare this measure of avoidable absenteeism with more traditional measures, and (c) to examine the relationship of the measure of avoidable absenteeism with a selected absence policy-a waiting-time provision whereby employees were compensated differently for absenteeism. The avoidable absenteeism measure was more robustly related to predictor variables than were more traditional absence measurements. The results indicate that absenteeism policy is a far better predictor of avoidable absenteeism than any individual or attitudinal factor singly in or combination. Also, a relatively small percentage of employees were responsible for the vast majority of avoidable absenteeism.In this research, we compared the variance in several criterion absence indexes-including a measure developed here, which we refer to as avoidable absence-explained by a number of predictor variables. In addition, we examined the explanatory power of an absence-policy provision relative to a series of demographic and attitudinal predictor variables. We first present a brief overview of absenteeism as an organizational concern and then discuss organizational policy as a robust predictor of actual absenteeism and measurement issues in absenteeism research.

On the aggregation of individual withdrawal behaviors into larger multi-item constructs

“…A test±retest coecient of 0.91 over 6 weeks was found using this avoidable absence operationalization for a separate sample. Also the mean self-reported level of 8.1 total absences/year was within the 95 per cent con®dence interval for the 8.5 total absences/year derived from archival sources (Dalton and Mesch, 1991). Dalton and Mesch (1991) found that avoidable absence could be more strongly explained (versus total or unavoidable absence) and that organizational absence policy was a much more powerful predictor than demographic and work attitudes for avoidable absence.…”

“…An inability to follow either Johns ' (1994) or Steel and Rentsch's (1995) recommendations can hurt the reliability of the data collected. Dalton and Mesch (1991) were able to follow many of these recommendations in operationalizing separate measures of unavoidable (involuntary) and avoidable (voluntary) absence (Chadwick-Jones, Nicholson and Brown, 1982;Driver and Watson, 1989). Unavoidable absence was measured by asking employees to ®ll in`how many days you were o the job in the last year because of your health (colds,¯u, injuries, etc.)?'…”

“…Yet research exists describing more detailed taxonomies for each behavior (e.g. Blau, 1994;Dalton and Mesch, 1991). I would like to now discuss the speci®c behaviors included by Hulin (1990, 1991) and Roznowski and Hanisch (1990) in the work withdrawal and job withdrawal constructs.…”

"The Reliability, Validity, and Accuracy of Self-Reported Absenteeism from Work: A Meta-Analysis"

“…To correct for unreliability in the records-based measures, we used the reliability coefficients from the recent meta-analysis by Johns and Al Hajj (2014) which reported a sample size weighted population reliability of .53 for total time lost, .52 for frequency of absence, and .53 for the combined indexes (K = 95, N = 25,587). To correct for unreliability in the self-reports we conducted an original bare-bones meta-analysis (Hunter & Schmidt, 1990, 2004 of the four testretest self-report absence reliability coefficients identified in our search (Blau, Tatum, & Cook, 2004;Dalton & Mesch, 1991;Laestadius, Ye, & Dimberg, 2008;Tang & Hammontree, 1992).…”

The Relationship between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Counterproductive Work Behavior

“…Research on CWB has been done differently, with some research looking at specific facets of CWB such as absence (e.g., Dalton and Mesch, 1991), aggression (e.g., Douglas and Martinko, 2001;Fox and Spector, 1999), and theft (e.g., Greenberg, 1990). At the same time, studies on CWB also looked at these behaviors collectively and this will be explored more below.…”