Lecture 4 knowledge clips Flashcards
What is sickness absence?
Non-attendance when scheduled to work due to illness.
What is sickness absence in NL?
Includes partial absence
- Working less hours because you’re sick
Includes work for therapeutic reasons
- You go to your work merely as a way to restore your health, not in order to be productive
- Usually you would have different tasks than normal
What is not sickness absence?
Not working because
- You’ve had an argument with your boss
- You don’t feel like going to work
- Your child or mother is sick
- You’re on holiday
- You’re pregnant
- There isn’t enough work
How are absences registered?
The sum of the not sickness absences is often registered as sickness absence, this means that registrations are often contaminated with other kinds of absences.
Presenteeism
This is the counterpart to sickness absence
Being present, but not productive due to health problems (without reporting sick).
Sickness absence in the Netherlands
About 50% of the employees have been absent due to illness at least once in the past 12 months.
The individual sickness absence percentage is about 4,5%.
- On all scheduled working days 4,5% is lost due to sickness absence.
The absence frequency is 1.2.
The average absence duration is 7 or 8 working days.
What do absence frequency and duration include? And what does this mean?
They include zero absenteeism, which means that it is about twice as high for people that have been absent.
- So, for those that have been absent, an average of 15 working days have been lost. This is 3 full working weeks if you work full time.
How long are people usually sick? And how does this affect the total sickness absence days?
Often people return to work in a few days or at least a week, but long term sickness absence, individuals who are ill for months, determine about 80% of the total sickness absence days. This strongly increases the average.
Why does absenteeism decrease from 2005-2014 and increases from 2014?
- This is due to the economic cycle
- In times of recession, employees are less likely to call in sick, but continue to work despite having a cold or feeling ill.
o They do so because they experience high job insecurity and frequent or long term sickness absence increases the chances of losing your job. - In years of economic growth, sickness absence is generally higher
- In 2020
o Sickness absence is influence by the corona virus
o Economic recession reduced sickness absence
How high or low is sickness absence in the Netherlands compared to other countries in the EU?
It’s relatively high
Why is the sickness absence relatively high compared to other countries in the EU?
This is due to differences in regulations in different countries.
How can the difference in sickness absence be explained between the Netherlands and Denmark?
In the Netherlands employers need to pay the wage for ill employees for 2 years and cannot fire them in the meantime.
- This is likely to change in the near future.
In Denmark ill employees can be fired after 4 months of sickness absence. Which automatically leads to lower sickness absence.
Is the sickness absence in Greece and Spain high or low? And how can this be explained?
In Greece and Spain the economic situation is rather bad leading to lower sickness absence.
What are the different kinds of sickness absence theories?
- Medical model
- Withdrawal theories
- Stress theories
- Social influence
- Allegro & Veerman Model
Medical model
Someone gets sick => goes to the doctor => gets treated => recovers => goes back to work
In this model
- The focus is on the nature of the health condition.
- The recovery of health is considered to be a necessary condition for returning to work.
- Medical doctors contribute to the recovery of health and therefore to the return to work.
What is the current view on the medical model?
Nowadays, almost all the perspectives on sickness absence are fully reversed
- Medicalisation extents sickness absence
- Returning to work contributes to the recovery of health rather than the reverse
The medical model is considered old-fashioned and obsolete.
Withdrawal theories
Sickness absence is a form of withdrawal. Employees withdraw from an unpleasant or unhealthy working situation by calling in sick.
EVLN theory by Farrell (1983)
An overarching withdrawal theory about responses to job dissatisfaction.
He distinguishes four basic responses based on how active and constructive the response is.
What are the four basic responses to job dissatisfaction according to the EVLN theory by Farrell (1983)?
Exit
- Active and destructive
- You leave the field/quit your job
Voice
- Active and constructive
- You speak up and complain about the bad working situation
Loyalty
- Passive and constructive
- You keep calm and carry on despite your dissatisfaction
Neglect
- Passive and destructive
- You do your job but in a lousy way
Which of the four basic responses of the EVLN do employers like best? And which should they like best?
Employers like loyalty the best, but they should stimulate voice instead so that they get the chance to improve the working situation and do something about the dissatisfaction.
- Loyalty is not forever, if the working conditions do not improve, people are likely to move to neglect.
Sickness absence in the EVLN
- Frequent sickness absence is generally seen as neglect
- Long term sickness absence is a form of temporary exit
The equity theory by Adams (1965)
There should be a balance between investments and work outcomes.
This balance is compared and evaluated relative to the balance of relevant others.
If you feel like you invest a lot but your work outcomes are too low, you can call in sick to restore the balance.
How can sickness absence restore fairness according to the equity theory?
Increasing own outcomes
- You have more spare time
- You can rest
Reducing own investments
- You’re not working
- You put less effort in your job
Stress theories
Employees call in sick because they experience health problems such as burnout complaints as a result of their job.
What work psychological models can be considered stress theories?
DCS model
- Focuses on strain as a result of high job demands, low job control and low support
JD-R model
- Burnout results from high job demands and low job resources, the health-impairment process. This can lead to sickness absence and other negative work outcomes
DISC model
- Same as the JD-R model
Effort-recovery model
- Same as the JD-R model
Social influence on sickness absence
Calling in sick is dependent on the actions and opinions of others.
The following can socially influence sickness absence:
- Absence culture
- Social norms
- Social comparison
- Attribution
- Supervisors attitude and behaviour
Absence culture on sickness absence
- Do colleagues and supervisors find sickness absence acceptable?
- Do they stimulate taking a long time to recover?
Social norms on sickness absence
- Descriptive social norms: what do colleagues do?
- Prescriptive social norms: what do colleagues think you should do?
Social comparison on sickness absence
- This influences the perceived social norm and attribution.
Attribution on sickness absence
- When you’re uncertain about vague health complaints, you may attribute these symptoms to the work situations if others complain about similar symptoms.
Supervisors attitudes and behaviour on sickness absence
- Are their clear rules about absence and when it’s acceptable to call in sick?
- This has a strong influence on sickness absence and the absence culture.
Allegro & Veerman Model (1998)
This model and similar ones are highly influential.
This model states that sickness absence is the result of a mismatch between the work load and the load capability of a person.
If the work load/job demands exceed what a person can handle, this results in health complaints (somatic and/or mental).
Whether these health complaints lead to sickness absence depends on the absence threshold.
What determines the height of the absence threshold of the Allegro & Veerman Model?
The need for absence
- Can you continue to work or is this impossible?
- The motivation to attend, which depends on the work satisfaction
Opportunity of absence
- E.g., if the work load is very high, you cannot afford to be absent, leading to a higher threshold.
- E.g., a permissive absence culture, where everyone is absent from time to time, the absence threshold will be lower.
When do you return to work according to the Allegro & Veerman Model?
Once you are absent, you have a spell of absence, you have to cross the work resumption threshold before you return to work.
What determines the height of the work resumption threshold in the Allegro & Veerman Model?
The need for absence
- Have you recovered sufficiently?
- Will you be able to handle the work?
- The motivation to attend: do you actually want to resume your work?
Opportunity of absence
- Can you stay home or do you have to work?
- E.g., are your coworkers encouraging/pressing you to start working again?
- E.g., are your coworkers encouraging/pressing you to take your time to recover?
SMASH
Study on Musculoskeletal disorders, Absenteeism, Stress and Health
Details on the SMASH
- 4 year longitudinal study
- 844 employees in 34 companies
- Observations of working postures
- Medical examinations
- Annual questionnaire: burnout and job satisfaction
- Company records of episodes of absence
o Absence frequency
o Total days of absence
What is the theory behind the SMASH?
Several meta-analyses showed that there is negative relationship between job satisfaction and sickness absence
- But it is unclear whether a low job satisfaction leads to a higher sickness absence or if sickness absence lowers job satisfaction.
There could be third variable like stress or burnout that explains the relationship between job satisfaction and sickness absence.
Burnout complaints could reduce job satisfaction and at the same time increase sickness absence.
What is the research question of the SMASH?
How are burnout and job satisfaction, longitudinally related to sickness absence.