Organisationally Induced Absenteeism

Abstract

Although absence from work may be due to any of a large number of factors, empirical evidence supporting the view that causal factors can be organisational in nature is scant. In the present study, however, levels of absenteeism on four different absence measures were found to be interrelated, so that from fourteen sub-units or sections of a company there was a number of sections with con sistently low levels of absenteeism, and this contrasted with another group of sections in which absenteeism was consistently high. At the same time consistent differences between the sections were also found with respect to other variables, showing that absence may be regarded as one facet of a wider behavioural problem pervading entire organisational sub-units. This finding suggests that absence could be used along with other variables as a valuable personnel statistic indicating areas of organisational dysfunction. This means that if levels of absenteeism in such cases as these were to be improved the solution should be looked for at the organisational level rather than at the individual or job level.