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You are here: Home > Current Topics > Mind your Business > 19 April 2004 |
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According to independent healthcare specialist IHC, the UK loses in a variety of respects from workplace absenteeism. The causes are varied and in some cases those taking time off from work may claim it is for illness when in reality they are not ill at all. Doctors are coming under fire for signing off patients from work when the reasons may not be totally valid and some doctors have complained that they have been subject to threats and abuse if they do not sign off their patients! Image: Just how ill are you when you decide to take time off from work, school or college? Source: Simon Cataudo, stock xchng The company based its assessment on a 2002 report published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Other facts from the report included the following:
The reasons given for absence are widespread but generally fall into one of five categories. The old stand by is a cold or flu. A cold is different to flu - the latter being more serious - but the symptoms are similar. Flu generally incapacitates the patient for three to four days; a cold is irritating but rarely incapacitates. One day flu therefore (contracted on a Monday or a Friday) is likely to be interpreted by the employer rather suspiciously! Image: The morning after - a genuine reason for a day off? Source: Dennis Wanbaugh, stock xchng The other popular reasons are stomach upset and food poisoning, headaches and migraine, back problems and stress. The latter is a problem that increasingly crops up as a reason for absence. The pressure of meeting targets, the fact that workers in the UK tend to work longer hours than our European counterparts and the competition in the workplace for promotion has tended to lead to a disproportionate amount of stress. We all need a bit of stress - it helps provide the drive to do things, but too much can overburden the capacity of the body to cope successfully with what life has to throw at us. Stress may be brought on by any number of factors but bullying in the workplace is cited as being an important one. There has been a rise in the number of bullying cases reported to unions and workplace help lines in recent years. It is not only illness that causes problems with our work. Commuting, the workplace environment, and a feeling of disempowerment can all cause the so-called work-life balance to be tipped too far in the direction of work. When humans feel they have no control over their lives they tend to become demotivated and demoralised. Taking a 'sickie' may be one way in which workers feel they are able to take some control over their lives and get a break from the routine that has alienated them in the first place. For employers, the cost is considerable. Not only do they have to cope with the lost output, but the absence may mean delays to orders leading to problems with suppliers or customers. In addition, there is the cost of finding replacement staff to cover the absence and the uncertainty that absence can cause in future planning. The imperative therefore is for businesses to find ways of managing absence to reduce its incidence and to deal with it when it occurs. |
The main issue surrounding this is that of management. Much work has been done relating to how best to manage human resources. Management is an inexact science because of the very fact that humans are involved and what might work in one situation and with one group of people will not work in another situation.
There are a number of key management thinkers that have shaped business development over the past 50 years. Hammer and Champy developed the notion of re-engineering, Christopher Argyris and Peter Senge are known for organisational learning, Michael Porter, Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad on competitive advantage, Henry Mintzberg on strategic planning, Stephen Covey on the 'habits' of successful people, and Tom Peters, Charles Handy and Peter Drucker on the links between business, work and society.
Successive Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have adopted some or all of the various theories developed by these thinkers with varying degrees of success. One can read of how ideas have been put into practice at various companies that subsequently seem to have lost their way. Who would hold up accountancy firm Arthur Andersen as a model of management success? Some did prior to the Enron scandal!
The issues relating to absenteeism raise a number of key leadership challenges. If a worker claims to be suffering from flu on Monday but is in work on Tuesday and seems to have few symptoms of post flu illness, how does the manager respond? If you accuse the worker of lying, you could be faced with a very unpleasant situation. Monitoring staff absence can cause resentment and accusations of harassment. Some people may give reasons for absence that hide personal problems which they do not want the business to know about. All these factors make the policies that firms have in place to manage absenteeism crucial.
One solution to the problem may be through education. Many workers, it appears, do not understand the costs they are imposing on a business through absenteeism. This relates to the principle of opportunity cost - the cost expressed not in money terms but in the sacrifice that has to be made as a result of the decision. In this case, the opportunity cost of the decision to 'have a day off' is the lost output, the disruption to the business, the extra work taken on by a colleague and so on.
Image: Absenteeism for whatever reason leads to rising costs for business - solutions need to be found to manage it effectively. Source: Carl Dwyer, stock xchng
Other solutions could be based on making the division between work and life more balanced through giving workers more control over their lives. This might take the form of the way staff are monitored and supervised, how far they have flexibility in organising their working life through home working, distributed working or flexible working patterns for example, through to job enrichment schemes, cell production and changing the working environment, for example, having a 'dress down Friday'.
The answer is likely to lie in a combination of factors - many of which have already been highlighted by the great management thinkers. Such theories are helpful when put into the context of the specific business. If, however, a particular system or process appears to work for company X it does not mean that that system can be lifted and transferred in its entirety to company Y. The dynamics of every institution and workplace is different and the skilled leader will be adept in recognising the characteristics and peculiarities of their workplace and be able to implement schemes that work for her or his employees. Even if such systems work initially, it is likely that they will have to change regularly because the personnel will change and present a new set of dynamics in the organisation.
