BNET Business Dictionary

Business Definition for: Absenteeism

  • the problem of employees taking short-term, unauthorized leave from work, resulting in lost productivity and increased costs. Absenteeism is usually sickness-related. Other causes may include a lack of motivation, domestic difficulties, or poor management.

Wiktionary Definition for: Absenteeism

  • #The state of being absent, especially frequently; the practice of an absentee.
  • #The practice of absenting one's self from the country or district where one's estate is situated.

Additional Resources

Reducing and Managing Workplace Absenteeism
Productivity loss due to absenteeism is a serious and growing challenge. In the United States, the annual cost to employers for time lost due to accidents is almost $100 billion, and other unscheduled worker absences costs even more. Absence management is a growing body of knowledge and experience that managers...
Tags: absenteeism, management, workplace, team
Articles 2007-03-27
Combating Absenteeism
Every company should have an attendance policy. An attendance policy allows a manager to intervene with an employee who is frequently absent. Besides stress as a primary reason for employee absenteeism, other causes relate to alcoholism, domestic violence, and family problems. If you confront an employee about his or her...
Tags: Absenteeism, Employer Employee.com, Attendance Policy, Workforce Management, Human Resources
White papers 2001-01-01
How to Combat Absenteeism Without Much Actual Effort
A while back, we cited research that suggests companies should adopt a less rigid approach to handling absenteeism since juggling work and life responsibilities can be challenging. General Motors agrees work/life balance programs are important -- for salaried employees, that is -- but thinks harsh measures are necessary to combat the industry-wide absenteeism issue...
Tags: Lori Deschene, Human Resources, Recruitment & Selection, Workforce Management, General Motors Corp., Absence
Blog posts 2007-11-12
Sickened By The Cost Of Absenteeism
It has been observed that Internally devised tracking systems, off-the-shelf software and outsourced absence reporting services are all growing popularity as employers try to figure out where an estimated fifteen percent of their payroll is going. Absenteeism costs, have been rising steadily and will continue to climb. This is not...
Tags: Absenteeism, Crain Communications Inc., Workforce Management, Human Resources
White papers 2003-09-01
How to Reduce Absenteeism
If you've been managing a team for a while you may start to be able to predict when you're employees will call in sick. So and so always gets the flu on Mondays, a number of folks always come down with something around the holidays, and that one guy down...
Tags: Jessica Stillman, Human Resources, Workforce Management, CCH, Employee, Absence
Blog posts 2007-10-12
Absenteeism: The Bottom-line Killer
Absenteeism has a material effect on the bottom line of most companies, yet few managers really understand the magnitude of the problem and the considerable direct and indirect costs. The first step in reducing costs is to use an automated absence management solution to identify the absence rate and the...
Tags: Absenteeism, Direct, Circadian Technologies, Workforce Management, Human Resources
White papers 2005-08-10
Absenteeism, Health Insurance, and Business Cycles
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how the economic environment affects worker absenteeism, with a focus on the design of the health insurance system and state of the business cycle labour market tightness. The authors take advantage of a unique Norwegian database The Frisch Centre Database containing a...
Tags: Absence, Health Insurance, Absenteeism, Health Care, University Of Oslo, Benefits, Healthcare, Insurance, Workforce Management, Payroll Solutions, Vertical Industries, Human Resources, Business Operations, Corporate Insurance, Enterprise Software, Software
White papers 2003-05-01
The Impact of Employee Voice and Compliance Mechanisms on Absenteeism, Discipline, and Turnover
This paper examines the impact of employee voice and compliance mechanisms on voluntary turnover and other workplace behaviors. Results from analysis of a unique, nationally representative sample of establishments in the telecommunications industry show that voice mechanisms in the form of unions and problem-solving groups are associated with significantly reduced...
Tags: Voice, Compliance, Absenteeism, Employee Voice, Compliance Mechanism, Workforce Management, Human Resources
White papers 2005-08-01
Reducing and Managing Workplace Absenteeism
Reducing and Managing Workplace AbsenteeismA Simple but Effective Eye Opener for any HR Policy MakerIts a great eye opener for an individual who has got the responsibility of taking care of employee attendances and work flow management. In such a situation it becomes imperative for one to discuss and...
Tags: absence, Managing Workplace, Managing Workplace Absenteeism
Discussion threads 2007-04-02
Time-off benefits that give more bang for the buck - absenteeism banks, etc
Sick time is out of sync with the times," concludes Paul Gibson, an analyst at CCH Inc., in response to the firm's latest annual survey on workplace absenteeism. In the past year, according to the study, employees have become a lot less likely to take unscheduled time off because they're...
Tags: absenteeism, bank, Baylor University, benefit, Gibson, PTO, survey, worker
Research articles 1996-09-01
Cost of employee absenteeism up, says Watson Wyatt study.
TORONTO, Sep 20, 2000 Employee absenteeism is having a greater impact on the bottom line than ever before, according to Watson Wyatt's 2000 Canadian StayingatWork survey, a comprehensive survey of absence and disability management practices. Direct disability and absence management costs are now...
Tags: Watson Wyatt & Co.
Research articles 2000-09-21
Dealing with Drug and Alcohol Abuse in the Workplace
Drug and alcohol abuse is a serious workplace issue. Of the 16.7 million illicit drug users aged 18 or older, 12.4 million (74.3%) were employed either full or part time, according to the U.S. government. More than one in three (38%) workers between the ages of 18 and 25 are...
Tags: workplace, substance, alcohol
Articles 2007-03-27
Workplace Bullying: A Management Primer
Workplace Bullying: A Management Primer What Constitutes Bullying? Common wisdom used to be that...
Tags: Workplace, Employee, Health Care, Health Cost, Robert Rice, Hirschfeld, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Adam L. Penenberg, Bully, Bullying, Bob Sutton, Gary Namie, Workplace Violence, Harrassment
Articles 2008-10-20
How Much Is Your Company's Healthcare Liability?
GM has a total healthcare liability of $64 billion. No wonder the ongoing talks with the UAW are tense and the industry as a whole is struggling to compete (for a fascinating look at how the way America pools risk handicaps auto makers, check out this article by Malcolm Gladwell)....
Tags: General Motors Corp., Health Care, Forbes, Benefits, Vertical Industries, Healthcare, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Jessica Stillman
Blog posts 2007-09-06
Writing the Killer Idea Pitch
If you've got an idea for improvements within your own company, it's often easy to assume that your boss will hear you out. window.addEvent('domready', function{ var Tips1 = new Tips($$('.Tips1'), { maxTitleChars: 100, initialize:function{ this.fx = new Fx.Style(this.toolTip,...
Tags: Gym, BNET Feature, Geoffrey James, Asset Management, Workforce Management, Memo, Business Operations, Operational Planning, Human Resources, Recruitment & Selection
Articles 2007-03-19
Managing Anger at Work
Anger is an emotional reaction to a threat, whether real or perceived. When it is triggered, it often results in a sudden outburst of energy directed against the person or thing that caused it—or something that symbolizes that person or thing. Anger is reactive. Therefore, it is usually expressed before...
Tags: Person, Workforce Management, Human Resources, Emotion, Humor, Recruitment & Selection, Strategy, Management, BNET Editorial
Articles 2007-11-09
Screening Disability Insurance Applications
This paper investigates the effects of intensified screening of disability insurance benefit applications. A large-scale experiment was setup where in 2 of the 26 Dutch regions case workers of the disability insurance administration were instructed to screen applications more intense. The empirical results show that intense screening reduces long-term sickness...
Tags: Disability Insurance, University Of Amsterdam, Benefits, Payroll Solutions, Human Resources
White papers 2006-02-01
Just-In-Time Production, Work Organisation And Absence Control
Studies of sick pay and absenteeism have traditionally treated absence as a worker-related phenomenon. There are good reasons to suppose, though, that firms' incentives to control absenteeism are not uniform. This paper presents what we believe to be the first evidence for relationships between the nature of a firm's production...
Tags: Absence, Incentive, Absenteeism, JIT, University Of Wales Swansea, Workforce Management, Sales Force Management, Human Resources, Sales
White papers 2004-02-01
Flextime is Good for Employees' Health, Too
The Find: Flextime has been shown to improve productivity and aid retention; now researchers have found it improves health and reduces absenteeism as well. The Source: Recent research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine published in the Psychologist-Manager Journal. ...
Tags: Absence, Flex-time, Health Care, Benefits, Healthcare, Workforce Management, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Jessica Stillman, Vertical Industries
Blog posts 2008-04-29
Managers chew over employee health care problems.(News)
Byline: ROBERTO CENICEROS ORLANDO, Fla.-Long chats over home-cooked meals play an important part in two employers' efforts to curb absenteeism and reduce health care costs. By gathering together in separate informal settings, managers at a Euro Byline: ROBERTO CENICEROS ...
Tags: absenteeism, General Electric Co., health care, supervisor, Volkswagen AG
Research articles 2005-08-15
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