Employers Provoke Absenteeism: Researcher

By Daniel Hays

NU Online News Service, May 28, 11:59 a.m. EDT?Workplace absenteeism is increasing and the problem is being exacerbated by increased pressure businesses put on their employees, according to a physician involved in a recent study of 31 industries.[@@]

The cost to employers for incidental absence is equal in days lost to those from workers' compensation and short-term disability, according to Dr. Edward Anderson.

Dr. Anderson, the co-founder of Nucleus Solutions in Arlington, Va. and Sharon Kelata, chief executive officer of the non-profit Disability Management Employer Coalition in San Diego, are due to present the study's complete findings at a DMEC conference next month in San Francisco.

The DMEC poll of 200 human resources and operations managers in industries employing fewer than 5,000 and more than 50,000 found that among those expressing an opinion, 30 percent believe incidental absence is increasing and only 4 percent said it was decreasing.

Incidental illness--defined as unscheduled illness-related employee absences of one to five days, according to DMEC--accounts for between 30- and 50 percent of all lost work days. By one estimate cited by DMEC, the lost output and related costs amount to $300 billion a year for American employers.

Among the causes of absenteeism is "increasing pressure on workers for productivity," said Dr. Anderson. He noted that pressure has fallen on managers as well, whose span of control has been impacted by a thinning of their ranks.

"They see their people less and there is less connectivity," he said, adding that workers feel management undervalues them and has no commitment to them.

Dr. Anderson said that as absenteeism increases, the problem becomes a vicious spiral. He gave as an example a call center where, due to missing colleagues, employees have to assume a higher volume. When the additional load burns out a worker, "they call in sick and that compounds the absences."

The survey results turned up a number of discrepancies between perception and reality. Dr. Anderson said 90 percent of those polled believe that incidental absence was manageable, but only 45 percent were aware of what the lost time cost was to their enterprise.

Additionally, there was no agreement on how to address absenteeism. The survey asked about 30 different tactics and found only 16 percent of those methods were used by more than 80 percent of respondents.

"For each group that thought they had a silver bullet, an equal group said that's the least efficient method," Dr. Anderson related. The divergence of opinion results because there is no one-size-fits-all solution, he said.

Among the approaches mentioned were incentives, work process engineering, counseling, job sharing, data tracking, ergonomic studies, wellness programs and fitness centers.

One difficulty in finding a solution, Dr. Anderson said, is that many "employers don't take accountability" and realize they create the environment that makes employees want to be at work or be absent. "We beat up on workers," he said.

When employees return after an injury that results in a workers' compensation claim, "if they're not handled right, or their restricted duty doesn't make sense, they'll find something else to go back out on. After a claim people will be vulnerable to incidental absence," he advised.

Dr. Anderson said research has found that hard-line punitive tactics such as suspensions and threats of firing "were the least effective."

Absenteeism, he said, can be addressed in the workplace the same way as safety issues. "You can create a management culture that favors reducing absenteeism," he said, adding that employers have to realize that absenteeism is their problem. "They have to own it."

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