Employees are permitted to be absent from work for a number of days in a year. However, research demonstrates that absenteeism cases have been on the rise globally (Pauly et al. 221). Excessive absenteeism has been confirmed to have huge production and financial implications on businesses (Pauly et al. 224). Absenteeism lowers the productivity of businesses because it brings about a situation where employees do not perform maximally to achieve the production goals of business establishments. In the last two years, absenteeism has increased from 2.2% to 4.7% in the software development and sales company. This paper discusses the reasons for the high absenteeism among employees in the software development and sales company. The case facts were identified by the task force that investigated the causes of the high rate of absenteeism in the company.
In the last two years, many employees retired from the company. However, only 70% of the retirees were replaced, creating a deficit in the workforce by 30%. The management has argued that the remaining 30% of new employees to replace the retirees would be hired once the economy improves. This is a high number of employees who will be absent from the company for an unknown time. The dearth of employees overburdens the workers because they are expected to preserve the productivity that was in the company before the other employees retired. The current workers might be excusing themselves from work to avoid the stress associated with the expected high personal performance to maintain productivity (Westman and Dalia 600). Retirees in companies should be replaced immediately to maintain regular operations and efficiency within companies. Research shows that lack of immediate employee replacements in business entities might lead to inefficiencies and lowered productivity that might take longer to recover (Ekerdt 79).
The other case fact identified by the task force was that the new hires made by the company were mostly young people in their 20’s who had small children. Small children require a lot of care and attention from their parents because they often become ill. This implies that the new hires could be absent from work to provide childcare for their young children. The young hires could not avoid being absent because, in most cases, children fall sick abruptly.
The third case fact was that the customer care center opened in India could be contributing to absenteeism among programmers because there were “rumors” that their services could be needed at that place. Programmers could be absent from the software development and sales company because they could be on a job-hunting mission in the new customer care center in India. It has been demonstrated that employees could be absent from work as they organize their resumes and attend interviews for new jobs (Ekerdt 71).
The task force also established that employees were absent from work because they contended they were entitled to 10 sick days in a year. They could feign sickness so that they could use all the entitled sick days. This significantly contributed to the high absenteeism in the company. Absenteeism caused by the case fact could not be avoided because there are no clear ways to ascertain the authenticity of sickness claims (Ekerdt 69). The employees argued that it could be essential to use all the 10 days lest they lose them because they could not be carried over to the following year.
Works Cited
Ekerdt, David J. “Frontiers of research on work and retirement.” The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 65.1 (2010): 69-80. Print.
Pauly, Mark V., et al. “A general model of the impact of absenteeism on employers and employees.” Health Economics 11.3 (2002): 221-231. Print.
Westman, Mina, and Dalia Etzion. “The impact of vacation and job stress on burnout and absenteeism.” Psychology & Health 16.5 (2001): 595-606. Print.