THIS IS FOR REPORT 1.

Types and Causes of Absenteeism

There are three major types of Absenteeism in the workplace. They are, respectively:

 Authorized and Planned Absence

Authorized and planned absence is a condition where the employee is absent
because of something that is planned, yet, authorized by the company. Examples of
this type of absenteeism include scheduled time offs, like holiday, maternity or
paternity leave, retirement, study leave, and sabbatical leave.

 Unplanned but Genuine Absence

This type of absence happens where the employee is absent from work due to
something unplanned that happens beyond their control. Illness and injuries are the
most common example of this type of absence. Minor diseases such as cold and flu
remain the leading cause of absence in the short term, with stress and musculoskeletal
injuries taking second place together, and back pain in third place. Bereavement or
sympathy leave is also one of the examples of unplanned but genuine absence.

 Unauthorized Absence
This is the type of absenteeism that costs a lot for the company, as this type
can negatively affect day-to-day business activities and profit. Tardiness, like taking a
lot of time before going to work and ends up in being late, leaving work early, and
 taking way longer breaks than permitted are some of the examples of unauthorized
absence

Absenteeism affects all kinds of businesses, and leads to a loss in productivity, revenue, and
profitability. There are a lot of causes for people to be missing work, here are the most
common causes of absenteeism in the workplace:

 Illness
A sickness is an event, usually unplanned and not under anyone’s control, that
every employee occasionally suffers. Each organization has a certain limited amount
of approved sick leaves and they are paid for in most organizations.
Sickness is, of course, not something for which the workers plan and
therefore, companies and organizations should remain flexible as long as their
employees are not fully recovered from the sickness.
 Injury
At work or outside the workplace, accidents can occur, resulting in absences.
Injuries, chronic ones, such as back and neck issues are a very common cause of
absenteeism in the workplace, as well as acute injuries.

 Family Care
Examples of this type of excused absence are maternity or paternity leave. For
the new parents, the birth of a child means a significant amount of adaptation. New
mothers need time to recover and spend time with the child from birth. Fathers may
be granted leave to care for the mothers and to assist with the tasks necessary to care
for a newborn.
Another reason to grant this type of leave is to look after a close family
member who is ill. For instance, a parent may undergo an operation and require
constant care during the period of recovery. Until the individual is able to take care of
themselves alone, the employee may be granted paid time away from work.

 Bullying and Harassment

 Employees who experienced bullying or harassment by co-workers and/or
bosses− either verbally, physically or sexually, will surely be more likely to miss
work, in order to avoid the situation.
We can say that bullying is quite tricky, due to the fact that bullying and
harassment attacks can be a form of hard-to-convict microaggressions. Victims are
also often reluctant to bare their experience.
Not only companies should worry about absenteeism when it comes to
bullying, in a study ran by the Centre for Generational Kinetics and Ultimate Software
of over 1,000 adults in the United States of America, 6 out of 10 respondents showed
that the lack of emotional safety at work would definitely make them immediately
leave their job.

 Burnout, Stress and Low Morale

A bunch of workloads, stressful meetings or presentations, and feeling

underappreciated or worse, unappreciated, can cause employees avoiding going to
work. In addition, personal stress and certain problems outside of work can also cause
absenteeism.

 Disengagement
For most organizations, disengagement is a serious concern. To reduce disengagement
organizations have come up with all kinds of rewards and recognition for employees
including incentives, additional work pay, overtime pay. There are two types of
disengagement:
 Passive Disengagement
Employees who are lacking in motivation in doing their jobs and have
so sense of responsibility and loyalty towards their co-workers or
employer, are definitely be more likely to miss work. It's tricky to
measure absenteeism among these employees, because even when they
are in their respective workplace, they are only half there.
  Active Disengagement
This means hunting for jobs. Because usually, interviews for jobs take
place during working hours, the actively disengaging employee will
have to make reasons, like a disease or something else to make time in
their schedule for the interview.

 Mental Distress
Mental distress, such as depression is one of the main causes of absenteeism.
Depression is one of the leading causes of absenteeism in the United States of
America, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
If people try to medicate their pain or anxiety themselves, depression can lead
to abusing certain substances, like alcohol, or other drugs. In general, employees that
experienced harassment and bullying in the workplace, will be more likely to be
reluctant to open up about their experience, and depression is still stigmatized in many
parts of the country.

 Tardiness/Partial Shift
Late arrival, early departure, and taking breaks way longer than the permitted
time given, are considered as a form of absenteeism and may affect the morale and
productivity in the workplace.
REFERENCES:
 Kocakulah, M. C., Kelley, A. G., Mitchell, K. M., & Ruggieri, M. P. (2016). Absenteeism
Problems And Costs: Causes, Effects And Cures. International Business & Economics
Research Journal (IBER),15(3), 89. doi:10.19030/iber.v15i3.9673

 T. (1999). Workplace Attendance and Absenteeism(Rep. No. 0 9586157 2 1). Sydney,

Australia: Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

 Walker, B. (2018). The 8 Kinds of Absenteeism (and How to Fix Them). Retrieved from
https://business.dailypay.com/blog/the-8-kinds-of-absenteeism-and-how-to-fix-them

 Types of Absenteeism and How To Deal With Them. Retrieved from

https://www.randstad.co.uk/workpocket/what-to-do/hr-guide-proper-way-of-managing-
absences-from-work/

 Top 5 Causes of Absenteeism In The Workplace | Sidekicker. Retrieved from

https://sidekicker.com/au/blog/top-7-causes-absenteeism/

 The Causes And Costs Of Absenteeism In The Workplace. (2013). Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/investopedia/2013/07/10/the-causes-and-costs-of-absenteeism-
in-the-workplace/#31aee173eb65
THIS IS FOR REPORT 2.
CONCLUSION

To conclude, absenteeism is a phenomenon when employees are not doing their job
according to what are they supposed to. This phenomenon, although common, is considered
as a nuisance and may affect the organization and the other co-workers, as they can give
significant impact on the finances of the organization, lower other employees’ morale and
productivity in the workplace.

There are two types of absenteeism in the workplace, approved and unapproved
absenteeism. With vacation, maternal leave, and sick leave as examples of approved
absenteeism. As for the other, any of the time spent that is not covered by the company’s
policy and without approval from the management, can be classified as unapproved
absenteeism.

Both types of absenteeism carry certain challenges to the organization. The challenges
are divided into three cases: impact on individual productivity, team performance, and profit.
Firstly, any form of unapproved absenteeism can give impact on individual productivity. As
other workers need to cover up for the absent co-worker in order to keep the system up and
working, this can cause the accumulation of stress due to doing too many tasks at once. If this
persists, additional stress caused by the workload can lead to decreasing health quality, thus,
ending in various health problems that will result in further absenteeism. With further
absenteeism, the company will be more at risk, financially.

Secondly, as the time spent missing work increases, the workers in the office are left
to do their absent co-worker’s part of the job. This can even make the supervisor’s
productivity affected by it. To put it in other way, one of the biggest downsides of
absenteeism on the side of the employee is the extra workload that colleagues must do for the
absent employees, thus, affecting the team performance.

Lastly, paid employees that have troubles for showing up to work, are still getting
paid by the company without actually fulfilling their work. This, of course, can cause a huge
loss for the company. If they keep spending money on contract workers and overtime pays,
this will definitely end up in the increase of costs and the decrease of profit margins.
 But of course, we can do preventive measures in order to prevent these events from
coming to life. There are six ways of preventive measures:

1. Giving Proper Working Conditions and Facilities

Although it is a must for companies and is an employee’s right to give and receive
proper working conditions and facilities, this is also a major factor that can affect
employees’ productivity and morale. If a worker feels comfortable and happy with the
environment in their workplace, they will surely be more keen on coming to work and
increases their productivity.

2. Proper Selection
There are a lot of effects on improper selection that can be written on a whole journal,
with the occurrence of absenteeism being one of it, due to not-well-suited employees
will undeniably try to miss work. As selection is the most crucial part of the whole
recruiting process, companies need to put a standard specification and requirements to
look for people to fill in their vacant positions.

3. Reasonable Wage Rates and Rewards

Sufficient wages must be given to workers in order to maintain a reasonable standard
of living. Companies should also refer to the country’s minimum wage standard in
order for the employer to not give wages under the given standards. However,
companies should also consider a few factors to determine their employee’s wages,
such as: Education Background, Experience, Job Position, and Work Industry, while
also making sure that the employee feels that the wage they are receiving is something
worth working for.

4. Liberal Grant of Leave

Granting leave when workers have genuine reasons for availing leave should be
liberal to the management, as the company cannot be too strict about it. If the reason
is logically fulfilling, and needed by the worker, employers should give them liberal
grant of leave (weddings, sickness, family purposes, etc.) but the management must
also keep in mind, that for federal employees, taking unscheduled leave must be
subtracted from his allotment of accrued leave days, comp time, or credit hours. If he
 has unused leave days left, he'll be paid for the day; if not, the leave will be unpaid. In
Malaysia, there is a specific regulation regarding this issue, where it controls
employees right on how many days that employees can take leave.

5. Work to Keep Employees Motivated and Engaged

Employers should motivate workers in order to improve their performance and must
refrain from giving criticism too frequently to the workforce working under them.
Engagement is very important for companies, because it shows how much the
employees feel belonged in the company. The employees might be highly engaged
when it comes to their first or second year in the new workplace. But as time flies, its
normal to have employees who became disengaged, affected by workloads, repetition
of work, conflict with their co-workers, etc. That is why companies need to re-engage
them. One of the examples of activities that companies do in order to re-engage their
employees is family gatherings.

6. Maintaining Discipline
To achieve work requirements, remove any unnecessary distractions, and make a
pleasant workplace, well defined rules and regulations should be made. Once these
strategies applied, it will increase the labour productivity and it will affect the end
result of a product.