User:Polster.takala/sandbox

Absenteeism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Absenteeism is a habitual pattern of absence from a duty or obligation without good reason. Generally, absenteeism is unplanned absences. Absenteeism has been viewed as an indicator of poor individual performance, as well as a breach of an implicit contract between employee and employer. It is seen as a management problem, and framed in economic or quasi-economic terms. More recent scholarship seeks to understand absenteeism as an indicator of psychological, medical, or social adjustment to work.

Contents

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• 1Workplace
  • 1.1Bullying
  • 1.2Narcissism and psychopathy
• 2See also
• 3References
• 4Sources

Workplace[edit]

High absenteeism in the workplace may be indicative of poor morale, but absences can also be caused by workplace hazards or sick building syndrome. Measurements such as the Bradford factor, a measurement tool to analyze absenteeism which believes short, unplanned absences effect the work group more than long term absences, do not distinguish between absence for genuine illness reasons and absence for non-illness related reasons. In 2013, the UK CIPD estimated that the average worker had 7.6 absent days per year and which cost employers £595 per employee annually. Measurement methods are not exact and all encompassing, resulting in skewed results depending on variables being observed. As a result, employees can feel obliged to come to work while ill, and transmit communicable diseases to their co-workers. This leads to even greater absenteeism and reduced productivity among other workers.

Work forces often excuse absenteeism caused by medical reasons if the employee provides supporting documentation from their medical practitioner. In Poland, if employees themselves, or anyone under their care including children and elders, falls ill, sick leave can be applied.

The psychological model that discusses this is the "withdrawal model", which assumes that absenteeism represents individual withdrawal from dissatisfying working conditions. This finds empirical support in a negative association between absence and job satisfaction, in particular, the satisfaction with the work itself. Factors attributed to absence from work can include stress, family related concerns, work culture, the employees ability to do the job, and supervisor-subordinate relationship.

Medical-based understanding of absenteeism finds support in research that links absenteeism for medical reasons with mental and behavioral disorders, diseases of the digestive system, neoplasms, and diseases of the genitourinary system.This excludes pregnancy, childbirth, and puerperium. The cost of this, in euros, is 7.43 billion per year for men and 9.66 billion for females (6.7 billion euro after taking out pregnancy, childbirth, and puerperium.)  Research shows that over one trillion dollars are lost annually due to productivity shortages as a result of medical-related absenteeism. 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.

Evidence indicates that absence is generally viewed as "mildly deviant workplace behavior." For example, people tend to hold negative stereotypes of absentees, under report their own absenteeism, and believe their own attendance record is better than that of their peers. Negative attributions about absence then bring about three outcomes: the behavior is open to social control, sensitive to social context, and is a potential source of workplace conflict.

One tactic companies use to combat unplanned absences is the notion of paying back unused sick time.

In School

While occasional school absenteeism may not be problematic, excessive absenteeism has shown to have a negative impact. Students with poor attendance records are found to be at a disadvantage both academically and socially. Compared to their peers, these students are more at risk of academic under-performance and early school leaving. They are also at risk of having more restricted opportunities in terms of further education and employment, and are likely to experience social and emotional problems in adulthood. Missing school can be a habit-forming behavior and can be challenging to deal with despite growing awareness of the causes of absenteeism.

Research evidence suggests that early interventions are six times more likely to be successful than those after students’ non-attendance has reached the persistent stage. Equally, there is normally one initial reason, referred to as “the trigger point”, for the students’ non-attendance. By the time students’ absences have reached the persistent stage, there are at least several more reasons used to justify the action.

There are positive and negative reinforcements regarding student absenteeism. A positive reinforcement meaning that the student will receive either more attention from their parent or guardian, or receive tangible benefits from not going to school. A negative reinforcement meaning that the student is avoiding school. Dube and Orpinas conducted a study by surveying 99 upper-elementary and middle schools, targeting students with attendance problems. Three major profiles were identified from these students. Dube and Orpinas found that 17.2 percent missed school to avoid fear, anxiety problems, or escape from social or evaluative situations; 60.6 percent missed school to gain parental attention or tangible benefits; and 22.2 percent had no profile.All three groups significantly differed in mean scores for behavioral difficulties. Children who fit within multiple profiles had the highest level of behavioral problems, and children in the no-profile group had the lowest. Children with multiple profiles had higher mean scores on frequency of victimization and total number of traumatic or stressful events than did those in the other groups.

Although there are many theories to treating absenteeism, there is no universal treatment. There is however, a step by step process identified by Evie Bald, to manage absenteeism. This process includes identifying chronic absenteeism, identifying the reasoning behind the absences, work with families to address issues, and offer positive reinforcements if necessary.

Managing in the Workplace

Absenteeism is a habitual pattern correlated with emotional labor and personal reasoning, but there are resolutions to finding ways to alleviate the cause. Kelley, et al. (2016) says stress accounts for twelve percent of absenteeism in the workplace a year, which is a matter in which the company needs to stay in communication with the employee and work towards a solution. A great example of finding progress is forming an employee assistantship program (EAP), which is “a strategy to help workers deal with issues outside of work that employees bring to the workplace” (Quinley, 2003). This not only involves stress, but other mental health factors that employees deem worthy of attention. EAP can help those employees bring a more positive attitude to work, which can allude to the creation of a positive workplace environment.

Another matter in which employees’ absenteeism can be reduced is involving the employees’ personal matters (i.e. children at home, ill family, etc.) and the willingness of the company to be flexible. Perfect attendance is hard to accomplish in the workplace. Outside matters always play factors in absences, which can be spontaneous and uncontrollable. Flexibility is a key factor when working a balanced business, and it’s important for communication to flow effectively in the workplace.

Every company is different, and absence in the workplace should be limited. Effective communication can help in this effort to avoid problems in the workplace. Absenteeism not only effects the individual(s) work, but also the company from a group standpoint. Communication remains top priority when dealing with absenteeism. Communicating and willing to work together to achieve a common goal is a main reason that managing this pattern effectively are ways to avoid absenteeism in the workplace.

Planned vs Unplanned

Planned

Planned absences from work include scheduled time off, retirement, and sabbaticals. These absences cause little to no disruption to work spaces because of the time given to work around the absence.

Unplanned

Unplanned absence from work is defined as leave that is not planned or predictable. It includes sick time off, injured time off, special circumstances, and absence without permission. Unplanned absences indicate an important factor of the health of the workplace, incuding employee satisfaction and commitment.

(Starting Here is our notes)Absenteeism Information

"Bullying" and "Narcissism and Psychopathy" can be subtopics underneath a newly added title "Causes and Effects." Adding a new topic "Education" could be full of discussion in which absenteeism occurs in the level of education in schooling. Workplace section can be potential change to making sub categories of what's discussed within that section.

@Polstertakala: just confirming this is the sandbox that absenteeism will be using? JButlerModaff (talk) 22:42, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

-I'm ambivalent about the measurement content. On one hand, I don't think it's completely necessary but if you do keep it, maybe explain what the "Bradford factor" is. The link is nice but it was a tiny bit inconvenient to have to go look at that to understand portion of the text. Otherwise your content, organization, and overall layout look phenomenal! I feel like my group will look to yours as inspiration. Great job! Tjtilot (talk)Tessa

List of Resources

Lam, C., Huang, X., & Chiu, W. (2010). Mind over Body? The Combined Effect of Objective Body Weight, Perceived Body Weight, and Gender on Illness-Related Absenteeism. Sex Roles, 63(3-4), 277-289. doi:10.1007/s11199-010-9779-1

3. THE AUSTRALASIAN FACULTY OF OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE (1999). 145 Macquarie Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia. https://www.racp.edu.au/docs/default-source/faculties-library/workplace-attendance-and-absenteeism.pdf?sfvrsn=4

4. Blandul, Valentin. (April 2013). Scholar Absenteeism – A Continues Challenge of Contemporary Education". Social and Behavioral Sciences. Volume 76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.04.231

5. Dube, Shanta R. and Pamela Orpinas. "Understanding Excessive School Absenteeism as School Refusal Behavior." Children & Schools, vol. 31, no. 2, Apr. 2009, pp. 87-95. EBSCOhost

Changes for Article

Minor Edits

·       Getting rid of the & sign in the second paragraph for the reference

·       "withdrawal model", changing to have “,” inside quotations

·       “Absence ascribed to medical causes is often still, at least in part, voluntary.” – get rid of “at least in part” because it is too wordy and unnecessary

·        "culturally approved sick role". -  "culturally approved sick role."

·       "sickness" before the word "absence", - "sickness" before the word "absence,"

·        "mildly deviant workplace behavior". - "mildly deviant workplace behavior."

·       No common needed -  to work while ill, and transmit

Moderate Edits

·       Adding in new sub topics under workplace

·       Second Paragraph – adding in the citation for Nelson and Quick

·       Reword/rework “ For example, people tend to hold negative stereotypes of absentees, under report their own absenteeism, and believe their own attendance record is better than that of their peers.”

·       Properly cite in article Boddy -  Boddy finds the same dynamic where there is a corporate psychopath in the organization.^[9]

·       Change wording in this to make it not absolute - This leads to even greater absenteeism

·       Research what the author is trying to say in this sentence and adapt the punctuation to fit that -  “….given that there are positive links between both work stress and depression and absenteeism.”

Major Edits

·       Adding information from our sources

·       Expanding on the bullying and Narcissism and Psychopathy sections

·       Expanding of the last paragraph of “Workplace” and putting it in its own section

·       Add section on Managing Absenteeism

·       Delete anything that pertains to “Nelson and Quick” because there is no source listed or find the source the author was talking about and cite it if it is reliable.