Absenteeism as a Misconduct in Organization

Introduction

Workplace misconduct refers to improper employee behavior that’s inappropriate for the

workplace and negatively impacts their work, environment or peers. Misconduct can

range from minor issues to serious breaches in company policy. Some types of

misconduct can be corrected through training and one-on-one discussions, while others

require a firm response like immediate suspension or termination.

Misconduct behaviour may take in the form of confidentiality breaches such as leaking

organization secrets to competitors and business rival, insubordination whereby

employees refuse to follow orders and fulfill their duties, theft, unethical relationships

like having an affair in workplace which eludes to favoritism and harassment and

discrimination such as bullying and sexual harassment as well discrimination and

intimidation. Stress and burnout is another causal to absenteeism. An employee may be

stressed because of work or due to personal reasons. Whatever the reason, they may

believe that being at work will only add to their stress. Furthermore, if an employee feels

burnt out, they’ll feel disengaged from their work. Another factor is care. If your

employee is a caring person, such as for an elderly relative, they may take time out of

work if the dependent is ill, has appointments, or if their care arrangements fall through.

This may also be the case if an employee has a dependent child. They cannot

concentrate on their job thinking of family care matters.

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Absenteeism for whatever habitual or unplanned version would definitely affect the

productivity of an organization. Work and assignment most probably distort or being

negligible due to absenteeism. The translation of such behaviour can be illustrated in

terms of financial lost to the organization.

Resolving misconduct promptly especially in handling absent from work cases is

essential for protecting employee’s welfare and safety, promoting teamwork, upholding

best practices and avoiding litigation. Managing misconduct reflects the values of

organization especially as a leader and impacts the company’s mission.

Absenteeism as the misconduct behaviour

Missing from office without any reasons and proper authorization or AWOL is one of the

misconduct behaviour occur at office or work place scenario. The rational of went

missing most probably due to habitual purposes or personal or family matters.

Absenteeism is the term given when an employee is habitually and frequently absent

from work. This excludes paid leave and occasions where an employer has granted an

employee time off.

The basis or rationale of being absent from office may be attributed to pressure and

anxiety or fear of bullying and harassment. Junior workers might have been experience

by senior workers to complete additional job not relevant to its existing job description

whilst female workers might have been sexual harassed or abuse by male workers. In

addition, it can possibly due to family matters that cause from heavy workload that

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trigger an alarming stress to the workers especially covering other workers job as well

as inadequate staffing.

Mental health condition would one of the attributes to the problem of absenteeism. A

prolong sickness of unidentified causes might be one of the reason for not coming to

office on a regular basis. According to Karimbil, (2019) there are four basic types of

absenteeism namely authorized absenteeism, unauthorized absenteeism, wilful

absenteeism and absenteeism caused by circumstances beyond the employee’s

control. Karimbil (2019) further explains that authorized absenteeism is when the

employee is not at work with the permission of a superior. This type of absenteeism is

planned and can be managed appropriately, unlike the following three types of

unplanned absenteeism that difficult to manage.

Unauthorized absenteeism is when the employee is not at work without the permission

of a superior and without providing information to the employer where about (Karimbil,

2019). Wilful absenteeism is described as the employee taking a deliberate decision not

to attend work (Karimbil, 2019). There are possibility that this kind of absenteeism was

due to habitual attitude of a non-responsible workers. According to a study conducted

by Grinza & Rycx, 2020 if there is an increase of 1% in the absenteeism rate correlates

to a decrease in productivity of 0.66% in an organization. The adverse relation meaning

a loss in productivity as opportunity lost to the organization. In another study conducted

by Rasmussen, Sweeny and Sheehan (2017), estimated that the South African

economy would lose 7.0% of GDP annually by 2030 due to absenteeism. It was

reported that up to 15% of employees are absent on any given day, costing the South

African economy R16 billion a year (OCSA, 2017).

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3. Explain the characteristics of the misconduct behaviour.

The personal characteristics of individual worker will determine the discipline or in this

case the attitude and the aptitude plays an important role in influencing the absenteeism

of any worker.

Most of individual who went AWOL affected by personal characteristics and

demographics. The attitude does not care more or less on employment might be

attributed from the inner side of individual workers. Kocakülâh, Bryan and Lynch (2018)

as well as Shamian , O’Brien-Pallas, Thomson, Alksnis and Kerr (2003) support above

mentioned and identified employees’ personal characteristics as possible reasons for

absenteeism. Personal characteristics and job characteristics have a significant

relationship to absenteeism (Salleh & Ringim, 2017). Personal characteristics have a

bearing on amongst other, fatigue that is seen as one of the predictors of future

absenteeism (Brborović, Daka, Dakaj & Brborović, 2017; Fan & Smith, 2018).

According to a study, researchers found a relationship between the following personal

characteristics and absenteeism namely gender, marital status, age, education and

tenure (Adepoju & Adamu, 2017). According to Gilleskie (2010), as well as Jansen,

Otten, and Van der Zee, (2017), women are more likely to be absent from work than

men. A significant correlation was identified between gender and work stress (Quinn &

Smith. 2018). However, other authors reported that these personal characteristics show

no significant relationship with absenteeism. In his study in hospitals in India, Chaudhari

(2020) found no significant correlation between absence and gender as well as marital

status. This is in contrast to a study done in Sri-Lanka by Dinushi, Ekanay and

Appuhamy (2015), where male employees who were married had significantly higher

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levels of absence. Pandey and Dhanopia (2020) state that married employees with

children have increased family responsibilities that could result in both men and women

missing work.

Factors contribute to misconduct behaviour.

Absenteeism in the workplace affects both employers and employees alike. The

adverse effect might include a reduced productivity levels thus increase the high

administration costs as well as increased labour costs in case of finding or hiring

temporary replacement workers. It also reflect in terms of providing services especially

on the perspective of poor customer service. One of the issue is reflecting on the poor

morale among colleagues. This will be particularly prevalent if employees constantly

have to fill in for absent staff and if they don’t see any retributions for absence.

Addressing family matters might be a contributor to absenteeism such as arranging for

childcare, schools and day care are common logistical problems faced by workers while

focusing on the job in hand. One of the factor is the need for a childcare is another

factor to the issue of absenteeism amongst employees (Kocakülâh, Kelley, Mitchell and

Ruggieri (2016) fail to attend work. Failure to manage this matter properly end up with

workers need to stay away from office as there is nobody is looking care for their

children fearing their safety.

Furthermore, absenteeism is also characterized upon the satisfaction on job level. Job

level satisfaction has a positive correlation with job level including salary and

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remuneration and it is reported that absenteeism is much high among blue-collar

employees who are low-income earners, have fewer responsibilities and more repetitive

jobs (Fourie & Keyser, 2018).

Besides that, Mat Saruan, Mohd Yusoff, Mohd Fauzi, Wan Puteh, & Muhamad Robat

(2020) found that the following non-workplace stressors namely conflicts with spouse,

pressure from relatives and financial burden as well as workplace stressors such as

heavy workload and lack of support by the management surely added to the stress

employees experienced at work. Negative co-worker relationships can increase stress

levels and will have a negative effect on employee attendance behaviour (Lieke, Johns,

Lyons & Ter Hoeven, 2016). However, Yang, Shen, Zhu, Liu, Deng, Chen and See

(2016) found that when employees perceive co-worker support they experienced lower

employee stress levels. According to Mashaba and Maile (2019), poor working

conditions are a major contributory factor to absenteeism. Working conditions such as

working hours, remuneration, health and safety, in the organization determine the

employees’ quality of work life (Elmatey, 2015). Lack of opportunities, lack of time for

task performance, lack of autonomy and the perception of heavy demand from tasks

leading to work stress are identified in many studies as work conditions that lead to

absenteeism (Maia et al., 2019; Brunner et al., 2019). Nanjundeswaraswamy (2016)

adds salary and rewards, work facilities and security as other work conditions that affect

absenteeism. With financial constraints, organization such as hotels and office often

operate with minimum staff levels and employees work long hours. This would lead to

stress and prolong fatigue. Furtherance, receiving poor remuneration non

commensuration with required job accomplishment would accelerate frustration.

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Ticharwa, Cope and Murray (2019), as well as Maila, Martin and Chipps (2020),

describe that when employees experience a heavy workload due to minimum staff

levels it is detrimental to both the physical and mental health of employees and it

contributes to higher absenteeism rates. Altintas and Turanligil (2018) concur that

excessive workload creates pressure for an employee who fails to keep up with work.

Ability to attend Illness influences employees’ ability to attend work. Family

responsibility, illness, transport and strikes are some of the social factors that can affect

absenteeism. Gncobo (2016) explains that illness of children, the spouse and personal

illness contributes to absenteeism levels. The pandemic such as Covid-19 pandemic

also lead to quarantine leave. Thus, 14 days of holiday may constitutes absenteeism. In

the case of HIV/AIDS prevalence among the South African workforce ranges from 7,9%

to 25% (Basson & Roets 2013).

Badubi (2017) mentions numerous social factors that contribute to absenteeism such

as; minor and serious illness, personal problems, family responsibilities, pregnancy and

maternity related issues, injuries, stress, burnout, fatigue, alcohol- or drug-related

issues, bad weather, transport problems, labour disputes, organizational culture, unmet

expectations, poor job-person match, supervisor personality and workplace abuse.

Karimbil (2019), in addition to the above, added factors such as disengagement,

dependents that are elderly and poor adjustment to working conditions as possible

causes to absenteeism rates.

Absenteeism can result when there is a negative gap between the employees’ values,

job expectations and the actual job experience. Such employees will tend to experience

low morale, poor attendance and low motivation that will manifest in higher absenteeism

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levels than those of satisfied employees (Karimbil, 2019; Naderi & Shams, 2020). The

alignment of employees’ values and job expectations to the organization’s practices

were found to enhance the employees feeling of belonging (Ruane, 2020).

5. Explain how the company overcome that problems.

The following action might be taken by employers in order to mitigate the problem of

absenteeism in the workplace. In order to mitigate and overcome disciplinary cases

such as absenteeism, the company may resorted to the following programs or activities:

i. Reprimand and warning

Reprimand is the action to alert workers on the misconduct. Sometimes, the

habitual attitude comes into effect with the influence of peers and co-workers especially

the senior staff. Usually it be followed by a verbal warning indicating that the offence is

not tolerable as it indicates disciplinary action thus should not be prolong.

ii. Show cause letter

A show cause notice or letter be issued if the matter still prevail demanding for an

explanation by the employees involved. This letter comes with the explanation on rules

and regulation pertaining to absenteeism and the action that can be taken by

organization if it is prevail in a frequent manner.

The show cause letter would be the document prove that such action by the

management is permissible under the Employment Act as evident.

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iii. Imposed penalty program

Negative financial incentives or penalty program will have an impact in reducing the

frequency or minimizing absent from jobs accordingly. Evidence shows that workers will

reduce their sickness absences in response to negative financial incentives which can

be infer as rewards to workers that are related to the performance of specific activities.

There are some drawbacks, however.

In many countries, individual firms have limited possibilities to develop their own specific

schemes. For instance, in the case of experience rating, they are prevented from doing

so because they are legally obliged to meet minimum statutory sick pay requirements.

When using an experience rating, employees with many absences have a larger wage

reduction, so that they will receive a larger penalty for reporting as absent.

iv. Improved working condition

Absences may be lowered by general improvements in working conditions, since

adverse working conditions can be related to poor employee health. Such

improvements cover a broad range of options, including the improvement on lightings,

ventilations as well as working spaces. Overall, these improvements can lead to

productivity gains as well as a decrease in sickness absenteeism.

Although the improvisation might cause additional cost, the management should

consider it as investment on employee’s welfare. Firms should also pay attention to the

contribution of psychological factors to sickness absences, and of the response of

workers’ mental health to poor working conditions and stressful circumstances. For

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instance, a period of downsizing or mass layoffs may have negative impacts, both due

to employees’ fear of job loss as well disappointment due to their co-workers leaving the

firm.

Managing workloads due to insufficient staff is another thing to ponder. Increased

workloads in such circumstances might also lead to higher rates of sickness absence

due to stress. In such a specific case, it is important that management has a greater

awareness of this issue.

v. High-involvement management

The intervention in terms of management involvement is really needed in mitigating and

solving the disciplinary cases such as absenteeism. High-involvement management

(HIM) refers to a program that is specifically related to improving individuals’ working

conditions. The focus is on the way jobs are designed in order to produce increases in

workers’ mental and physical well-being. The concept is based on greater worker

control of job tasks, and is applicable in firms that have a multitasking work

environment. Individual employees have the possibility to switch from one activity to

another as needed. Consequently, this makes it less urgent for the firm to bring in

replacement employees. Another advantage is that employees can improve their

physical well-being by reducing exposure to unsafe work practices. By applying this

initiatives, a firm’s management can build in better working conditions and improve

workers’ wellbeing.

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vi. Loyalty

Loyalty means undivided care and affiliation to the organization at all cause. The

organizations can explore and exploit workers’ commitment and loyalty to the

organization in order to reduce absenteeism. Worker morale dampens the effect that

adverse changes in the cost to workers of performing paid work activities has on their

absences. Hence, a program that improves worker morale could reduce absenteeism.

The importance of worker morale can be demonstrated for the effect of commuting time

on sickness absence. As mentioned, if it becomes more costly for workers to go to

work, in this case due to a longer commute, they are more likely to be absent.

vii. Work from Home

The new development cause by pandemic Covid-19 that requires a new norm of remote

working requirements. The management might resort to a more practical approach

during pandemic Covid-19 by introducing work from home to reduce absenteeism. This

practice can also be applied even after the cessation of pandemic especially for workers

at certain section of the office to continue working from home for the reasons of taking

care of ill family members and child.

The two pronged objectives serve the welfare of the workers as well as preserving the

sustainability of organizations in terms of productivity of the workers. Thus is will

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alleviate the motivation of the workers to contribute to the organization. The happier of

workers the higher productivity they contribute.

viii. Counselling and Open Communication

Habitual absenteeism can be reduced by counselling sessions. Some workers might be

affluence by habits of getting to bed at odd time sometimes at 3.00 a.m. playing games.

Therefore, they need some adjustment possible by counselling sessions. Supervisor

may reprimanded the workers with wisdom and stressing on the job engagement and

loyal to organization.

6. What type of training or courses to treat absenteeism?

There are many causes for absenteeism in the workplace. Consequently, there are

many different methods that can be used to combat the problem and alleviate the

causes. What determines which solution is best depends on how a company wants to

direct their resources and energy. Another determinant is how significant a problem the

company views absenteeism. There are several possible solutions and remedy for

organizations.

Firstly, the individual can be reprimanded and it is the duty of supervisors to explain the

section of absenteeism for his knowledge and reminded that the organization have

authority to refresh the rules and regulation pertaining to absent from work. The

organization has the power to move forward with disciplinary proceedings if

absenteeism becomes a problem or frequently occurred within their company that has

an adverse impact on production.

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Secondly, the company would resort for a counselling session to improve the attitude of

the workers. Counselling is an approach to identify how critical the problem is. This is

usually practiced at a per employee basis. Some companies question an employee after

one absence just to determine why the employee was absent. In the UK, a recent news

article reports that some “UK businesses are using lie detectors with a new generation

of voice analysis systems to crack down on employees who pull sickies”. (The Daily

Mail , May 16, 2008). Some would view this as a scare tactic showing that there will be

ramifications if continued absenteeism ensues.

Thirdly, an alternative approach is an absence management program. This requires

employees to complete forms and provide evidence from a doctor to qualify for sick

days (Poirier, 2003). If the given reasons do not qualify for a sick day, then wages are

either reduced or personal days are forfeited. When implemented correctly, this type of

program can decrease absences by up to 30% (Poirier, 2003).

Fourth, the organization can establish an Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) can

be implemented to assist workers deal with issues outside of work that employees bring

to the workplace. Under most EAPs, employers give their employees the names and

numbers of an outside service that can be called for help. The goal is to minimize the

effect that issues such as parenting and marital issues have on the worker while on the

job (Quinley, 2003).

Fifth, improving the organization culture and practices. Many employers believe

absenteeism can be reduced before it begins by making the workplace a positive and

welcoming environment. A positive company culture helps to promote job satisfaction

and job satisfaction is one of the most important factors in reducing absenteeism.

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Having clear expectations with regard to employee and company expectations and

ensuring that there is a true match is important in establishing job satisfaction.

Sixth, arrange for get together sessions of employees or invest on company outing to

reward productive employees. The social interactions between employees and

employers in an informal perhaps may reduce the issue of absenteeism amongst

employees.

Seventh, forming a mentor-mentee concept whereby a supervisor will coach and guide

the problematic staff in a proper manner and discipline. Indirectly, this will improve the

good relationship between workers and supervisors.

7. How employees response.

The reaction varies depending on the individual state of mind. Some openly accepted

whilst some against the efforts. Most of the workers admit their mistakes and repented

thus motivate themselves with the new opportunity given.

The engagement programs would definitely increase the motivation of employees.

According to Albrecht, Bakker, Gruman, Macey, and Saks (2015), engaged employees

adopt behaviors that discourage absenteeism. Therefore, business managers could

implement engagement strategies that motivate employees (Anitha, 2014; Bowen &

Ostroff, 2004; Rao, 2017).

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Employees with higher motivation levels are aware of the skills, knowledge, attitudes,

norms, values, and behaviors within their organization (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004) thus

they would lead as an example to the other co-workers.

8. What the company can get benefits to overcome that problems.

The main benefit to organization is to gain back the full force of workers that contributes

to the productivity of organization. One of the strategic objectives of organization is to

maximize profit and this can only be achieved by optimizing the use of human

resources.

In order to achieve optimization, the organization should implement measures to

manage and control absenteeism in order to optimize the contribution of workers to the

productivity and success. Kaiser (2018) emphasizes that absenteeism can be effectively

managed by creating what he refers to as the “moral attendance climate” in an

organization. This climate is evident when there is provision for discretionary absence

and when there is an understanding of acceptable levels of employees show up for duty

even when ill. In this climate, employees exhibit high levels of trust and

interdependence and are motivated to do what they believe is the right thing. Another

contribution to a positive environment at work, as reported by Bayram and Burgazoglu

(2020), is that of occupational health and safety training, workplace health programs

and implementing measures to combat high employee stress levels (Leonard, 2016;

Mat, Mohd, Mohd, Wan & Muhamad, 2020)

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9. What the employees get benefit from that treatments.

On the part of employees, they still retain their job in the organization as the source of

income with a new positive vibes and motivation to support their families amidst

problems that they are facing. When they miss work often, their performance is bound

to suffer, as they would have lost time on projects, training and updates. All of which

can lead to low morale in the work environment. In line with new motivation, they can

improved their productivity and might possibly enjoy the benefits of incentive pay, bonus

and other reward that the organization might offer. In addition, the might be promoted to

a higher position with benefit and other perks of employment.

10. Recommendation and suggestion.

The issue of absenteeism is mainly on the attitude of the workers and some cause by

personal and family matters. Therefore, the management have to initiate programs to

overcome this issue because it involve productivity of the organization.

The leadership and supervision should be emphasized to control the problems through

a tactful manner. Even though factors related to leadership and supervision were not

rated as important, these factors did deter 22% employees from reporting for work.

Another field of suggestion is to improve working conditions and job responsibilities In

order to assess the working conditions. Employees had to respond to questions relating

to fatigue and tired, performance of routine work, understaffing, workload distributions

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and work stress, salary and remuneration as well as working hours. Employees identify

workload (20%) and long working hours (18%) as factors that led to fatigue, which is

cited as one of the causes of absenteeism. The reported high workload seems to have

a direct link to the level of stress at work. Santhi and Reddy (2020) opine that long

working hours and shifts duties can be causes of stress and dissatisfaction at work,

resulting in absenteeism, a decrease in productivity and increased organizational costs.

11. Conclusion

In order to address absenteeism, the focus should be on the main causes and those

that the organization has an influence on. In order to reduce absenteeism, the attention

should be focused on the root cause either it is a habitual or related to other factors

namely family or other stressor that might cause absenteeism. Wellness intervention in

terms of childcare may be a wise investment, since there will be a marked saving in

costs with fewer lost working days.

Childcare facilities on-site would assist parents of infants and younger children to have

better attendance. In order to address boredom specific actions that could be put

forward to enhance job satisfaction and to address the high absenteeism rate in

organization such as to enrich jobs by considering broadening the scope and depth of a

job. Fatigue, stress and illnesses can be reduced by appointing the correct number of

staff with the required skills and abilities so that workloads and working hours can be

normalized and equally distributed. Employees also have a role to play, they need to be

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made aware of the negative impact their absenteeism has on the organization, which

may improve employees’ attendance.

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