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5 April 2006
The views expressed here are the personal views of the participants and are not necessarily the views of their organisations.
The following people were present at this fe3 mindstretch®:
After introductions, Gary began the session with a rough agenda. He noted that this is one of the most highly studied areas in organisational psychology, possibly because it was one of the last areas of controllable cost – and where there’s money, there’s interest.
He then went on to show a couple of interesting “facts” about absence . He pointed out that we had to get past the headlines – if you read further down the news item, the article states that the total number of days lost to absence across the UK economy fell by 4.5 per cent to 168 million in 2004, from 176 million in 2003. That brings total absence back in line with the level seen in 2002 (166 million days). The CBI believes rising labour costs and growth in average earnings are the reasons why the total cost of absence has increased despite the lower absence level.
The survey also reveals that organisations fear as many as 23 million - or 14 per cent - of the 168 million working days lost to absence last year were a result of unwarranted absence, or staff "pulling sickies". This represents a cost of £1.7bn, broadly the same figure recorded in the previous survey.
Chris pointed out that in his experience, some of absence might be accounted for by the type of job people did, or how it was measured – for example, he felt that sales force absence was often very low, but that in call centres, because they were able to employ such sophisticated methods of measurement, it was very high.
Peter agreed – that some of the figures might be explained because of an improvement in measurement techniques, and that organisations had better systems to capture absence. It’s also possible to pinpoint issues when measures are good – that if when a manager transfers, for example, absence which has been low before, starts to rise, then you’re able to tackle the real problem.
The participants raised some questions about the figures; Gary said that the costs here are tangible and allocatable (sick pay, lost production that can be identified, cost of replacement), but thought it didn’t include less tangible costs such as the effect on the team, and delays to production schedules.
Chris noted that in financial services, the cost of one day out has been estimated at £1500, and Keith added that the cost of replacing a nurse in the NHS was roughly the cost of replacement PLUS 35%. Angela thought that TfL only measured the cost of replacement.
Gary went on to talk through some of the theories which tried to explain absence.
Lindsay said she thought absence was also linked to not feeling part of the team and sufficiently insecure that employees think that they might “lose their place” if they were absent. Angela agreed but also thought that presenteeism was also a problem – putting pressure on the team so they come in, regardless of their sickness.
Paul asked if there was an identikit picture of “the sick employee” – he thought it would be easier to tackle if these employees could be identified. He also made the point that most of us view the organisation as a closed system which worked from 9-5 rather than the real open system it was – where external factors impacted on work. He told the group that, when tackling an employee with a very poor sickness absence record, all sorts of family issues emerged. It would have been a waste of time to try and focus on the work environment as a way of dealing with her absence record because most of the issues were to do with her home life.
Peter agreed, and said he felt that there were many variables to be taken into account when looking at people who went off sick – particularly when a large proportion of people took time off for (often) not real sickness at all. Angela thought that some people who have stressful jobs consider sickness absence as a safety value.
Lindsay added that “duvet days” in some of the PR firms she’d worked in tried to encourage honesty and that also, indicated a more holistic approach to work and life – i.e. that they do mix and one impact on the other. This way, employees can “hide” their reason for absence, but still take a day off.
When Keith asked if this changed the composition of the figures, and whether people were embarrassed, Lindsay said that she thought there was no difference in the rates, and that it was more about the presentation of the organisation.
Peter wondered how much of a presentation exercise it was – he said that his organisation had lots of “acceptable” categories for absence (domestic emergency, childcare issues for example) and these made it much more acceptable than confessing to a hangover! Lindsay added that the US had “personal days” which covered a variety of reasons without identifying them.
Joan said that for some organisations, when they introduced flexitime, sickness had disappeared, but stress levels had increased.
Yasmin told the group that a charitable organisation like WCS which ran on a very tight budget needed to be very clear about the impact of sickness absence and that everyone, from the manager to the cook housekeeper in the nurseries, knew that sickness absence made life very difficult.
Going back to the archetypal “sick employee" Angela said that some research indicated that those who had poor attendance at school also had poor attendance at work.
When we discussed the causes of short term absence , a number of comments were made about stress – whether it was a short-term illness, how it was put into this category and how reliable the figures were, considering the stigma attached to mental health issues.
Keith recounted a story of a friend who worked in a Japanese motor manufacturer, who had been diagnosed with clinical depression. However, the OH was treating her as though she had stress, because they didn’t recognise or understand the concept of mental health. He was alarmed that a global company couldn’t tell the difference between stress and depression. He also added that he had done some research into the impact of the Mental Health Act on organisations and found that some HR directors didn’t understand it in terms of work.
Looking at what works when dealing with absence , this slide also caused some debate.
Chris commented that he was amazed that the disciplinary process is so high in the list – his view was that the manager was not doing. Similarly, Peter was interested to read that the issue being taken up by the Board was on the list – he mentioned that in his organisation, the only department which had got board interest was the one where it was managed well. While absence levels were high, he thought this was because it was well measured.
Angela said that managers at TfL were not currently awarded bonused on managing sickness absence levels as this was not the way their performance was rewarded, but that she thought that this might be changing. At the moment, figures are reviewed weekly and an absence was translated as “Operator not available” when a train is cancelled as a result. Performance targets were recognised as linked to attendance.
Continuing this subject, Paul noted that in the credit card section of a bank he used to work at, the absence issue was tackled by putting part of the bonus pot behind it as an incentive to sort it out – to great effect. He wondered whether this arrangement might make absence “self financing”.
Gary said that this was one of the recommendations being discussed by one of fe3’s clients with whom fe3 had worked to develop an absence policy – to put the money saved through lower absence into health initiatives for employees.
At this point, Keith suggested that for non-profit making organisations, there were different motivational drivers for individuals and Angela felt that there were serious potential consequences to train drivers coming in and working when ill.
Gary felt that "genuine illness" may be an unhelpful concept. Because "stress" is not a disease, just a label for symptoms that no one can measure, if a patient says to the doctor they feel too unwell to work, then no one is able to say otherwise.
There is a tendency to use illness as a weapon in the battle between employer and employee.
Keith reiterated that depression is not stress and needs, but law, to be treated differently. A number of participants thought that the nature of the work creates different absence levels.
Following on from this, Gary then introduced the concept of the impact of culture on absence and introduced a model from Ackroyd and Thompson (1974).
Gary told the group that it is the tendency of any workgroup to form interests and establish a work identity and to develop “autonomy” – or a view of their control – as a result.
So all of the positions on the grid feature an “accommodation” of the pursuit of autonomy and management are at least complicit if not explicitly involved in the development of the culture.
The axes are trust – or the level of freedom given by management to employees – and regulation – or “rules” to regulate the conduct and performance of employees. He explained the various quadrants as follows:
Responsible autonomy: high trust, low regulation – often skilled workers who self regulate in return for being left alone by management; “rules” or regulation increasingly provided by internal reference, or a sense of their own professionalism (hence the trust)
Controlled autonomy: high trust, high regulation – again, workers behave in ways that managers find appropriate but whose behaviour is highly regulated formally – the army might be an example where “the rules” are well publicised and strictly enforced, but where the effectiveness of a fighting force depends, ultimately, on trust.
Irresponsible autonomy: low trust, low regulation – management do not set standards or rules but do not trust workers to do their jobs; management is likely to be “ad hoc” and inconsistent.
Direct control: low trust, high regulation– command and control management; low trust management is often “big” management – this culture threatens the autonomy of the group and employees and management are organised to confront one another; encourages employees to become psychologically engaged by the process of grappling or getting one over on management.
Moving on to some of the research on absence, Gary explained the following framework from Nicholson and Brown (1985). This typology/framework gives us a useful reminder about how management actions influence employee perceptions of absence – or absence culture. We define absence culture as a set of shared understanding about the legitimacy of absence.
On the matrix, salience is how far the culture influences the individual, and strong lateral ties, which means the group norms - rather than individual differences - influence absence behaviour. Trust is how far there is a culture of trust in the organisation – something which might be seen as a managerial responsibility. The four quadrants were explained as follows:
Deviant absence – because of high trust and low salience, the standard for personal behaviour is just that – personal, and as a result, individual standards are likely to indicate what level of absence is acceptable. Because of high trust, there is likely to be a sense of personal/professional responsibility in the decision
Calculative absence – acceptability of absence is based on individual norms and how far the individual believes they can work the system without penalty
Constructive absence – because of high salience, group norms indicate how much absence is acceptable in the light on duties and responsibilities
Defiant absence – in one study, it became evident to researchers that workers were co-ordinating absences to protect one another; in another, sickness days are “shared out”, particularly relevant to employees when there is overtime on offer
We thought there were some interesting links between the two frameworks and put the theories together. The four quadrants fit together like this:
Responsible autonomy: high trust, low regulation – this is where workers control themselves in way which managers find appropriate; with low salience, they are often guided by their own “professionalism” or work ethic about their absence behaviour which is why it might be classed as “deviant”.
Controlled autonomy: high trust, high regulation – workers also behave in ways that managers find appropriate; high social norm means that absence is seen in the context of what’s best for the GROUP, so “constructive”.
Irresponsible autonomy: low trust, low regulation – management do not set standards or rules but do not trust workers to do their jobs; may wink at absence, but approach is inconsistent – hence workers calculate how much they can get away with, so “calculative”.
Direct control: low trust, high regulation– command and control management; this is likely to result in absence which is seen as a “right” – defiant of management injunction, but still within the letter of the law; also a way of asserting some control over the working environment.
A common finding of research has been that individual absence is affected to varying degrees by the collective behaviour of others – a study of bus drivers by Mathieu and Kohler found that group level absence affected individual absence six months later, even after taking into account the effects of prior absence, personal characteristics and work attitudes (i.e. job involvement, satisfaction, commitment).
One study found that vast majority of participants (85-90%) believed the absence norm in their work situation to be higher than their own personal level of absence…..
By underestimating personal absences and overestimating the absenteeism of others, employees are able to disassociate themselves from the negative connotations imputed by personal absence (i.e. lazy, unreliable). As a result, more effective communication about the true figures may influence people’s perceptions of their own, and other’s absence levels.
Click to see Angela's slides .