Dealing with Absenteeism

by Alvin Tanicala, MHA, RHIT

Key words: absenteeism, prevention, motivation

A lazy, fat, and cynical orange cat hates Mondays! Garfield’s hatred for Monday stems from his past, where he, as a kitten, was forced to subsist on leftovers every Monday (Lockyer).

As the stories go, Garfield lived in a restaurant where they made fresh lasagna every Tuesday to Sunday. As a benefit from being a cute kitten, they gave Garfield as much pasta as he could eat, and this soon became his favorite food. Unfortunately, on Mondays, the restaurant is closed, and he had to eat leftover lasagna.

This may not directly result from absenteeism but hating Mondays, the day when people are supposed to be starting their workweek with energy and enthusiasm, dread coming to work. As a result, this will progress up to up the more disengaged employees and this will lead to missed worked days.  But absenteeism is not simply missed workdays but a sign of a more serious problem.

According to Janzer there are two steps to lower absenteeism:

1. Create a tracking system for employees’ absences and
2. Create an absence management policy.

These steps are fine, but they may not truly address the root cause.

According to an article by Quintana , the cost of absenteeism, per CDC is $225 billion for employers or $1,685 per employee, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated the economic loss at $40 billion per year and the missed workdays were estimated at half a billion days based on reports from Employer Assistance and Resource Network (EARN).

After looking at the cost of absenteeism, let us see what the causes are. Earlier, we said that a “disengaged employee” is absent from work than those who like to work.  We can attribute this disengagement at work to (1) stress and burnout; (2) low morale; (3) family concerns; (4) health-related issues ("What is Absenteeism in the Workplace and How to Prevent It")

I support Janzer's idea that the best thing to do to reduce absenteeism is to create a workplace environment that your employees do not want to be absent from.  Pair this wonderful workplace environment with an employee that is motivated.

What motivates an employee to work hard is DRIVE.  According to Pink (2009) drive is about autonomy, mastery and purpose.  In his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us , a motivated person will perform well and is more satisfied if their basic needs are met and they feel that they are paid fairly.

Also, an interesting finding from a study discovered that emotions and not financial incentives motivated employees to work.