A study on employee absenteeism in IT industry

Absenteeism is the intentional or habitual absence from work. Absenteeism to certain extent is
acceptable by the employers but excessive absences hamper the working of an organization.
Absenteeism is usually seen as indicator of poor individual performance, breach of implicit
contract between employee and employer or a management problem. Recent trend is to study
absenteeism from employee perspective psychological, medical or social factors.
The main issue related to absenteeism is low productivity, which results from low job
satisfaction of employees.
The various causes that lead to absenteeism among employees can be attributed to:

Employers: poor management, incapacity to provide necessary employee support, absence

of employee communication programme, length of employment, deficient work culture
Co-workers: harassment by co-workers, non-disclosure and non-sharing of knowledge
Employees themselves (personal problems): low employee morale, disengagement,
employee attitude, stress, depression, illness, injuries, family issues, job hunting

It is important for an organization to identify which of these factors are prevalent among their
employees so that corrective and preventive measures may be taken. It can further help
organizations to frame policies to minimize absenteeism.
We plan to gather information through personal interviews with employees of various
organizations, and also through a precise questionnaire. Responses to the questionnaire would
guide us through the process of interviews.
The study will help us identify the major reasons for absenteeism among the employees in IT
industry. This will help the organizations in re-framing the policies considering these factors,
which will reduce absenteeism and will be beneficial to both the employees (job satisfaction) and
the employers (profitability).

References:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/investopedia/2013/07/10/the-causes-and-costs-of-absenteeism-inthe-workplace/