Impact Of Absenteeism On Absence Management In Healthcare: An Essay.

1. How the employee absenteeism affects the absence management in health sector?
2. Do any relationship between employee absenteeism and productivity of an organization?

Essential factors that have an impact on the health care industry with respect to absenteeism

The meaning of the word absenteeism refers to the unscheduled leaves and absences(Duff et al., 2015). In accordance to the health care industry, the meaning of the word absenteeism generally addresses the medical employees and staffs that even includes the nurses in the establishment of the health cares which leads to a sustainable stress and even has an impact on the service quality of the health care centre that the patient’s receive.

The ability and the capability of health care is even affected by absenteeism that primarily manages efficiently with the issues that arises from the environmental factors and even has a huge impact for all the activities that are undertaken by the health care companies(Diestel et al., 2014). There needs to be adequate number of doctors and nurses in the health clinics and centres and even in the nursing homes and hospitals in order to pursue that the all the patients are attended and taken care of with the most effective quality and care so that the patients and their family members are happy and satisfied. The health care providers act as a spinal cord of a health care company in order to deliver the process(Johns, &Miraglia 2015). The quality service that is given to the patients is helpful in the improving the health factor for the human beings residing in the nation and thereby is able to reduce the mortality rate of the country and development of the economy as well. The issue that has an impact on quality level of service in the health care centres have been the rate of absenteeism among the nursing employees. This paper therefore looks to undertake a discussion about the factors that lead to absenteeism in the health care industry (Ubalde-Lopez et al., 2017).

The main issue that is existent in the healthcare organizations is the existence of absenteeism among the employees. The employees and the staffs play a key role in the healthcare sector as it is seen that service given to the patients determine the goodwill of the organization (Siu et al., 2014). The presence of the employees is able to enhance the performance of the organization and therefore this is the main issue which the researcher needs to evaluate in order to understand the impact of absenteeism in the absence management in the health care organization. The explanation of the problem and undertaking steps in order to resolve the issues will be helpful in completing the paper in a precise manner.     

Managers' influence in resolving the issues related to absenteeism in health care industry

The main aim has been addressed as follows:

• Determine the factors that have an impact on the degree of absenteeism on the absence management in the health care industry

The questions that have been discovered would be basis with respect to which the researcher would move ahead with the task and thereby would be able to complete the research in a precise way. The research questions associated with this topic are as follows:

Q1. What are the essential factors that have an impact on the health care industry with respect to absenteeism on the absence management?

Q2. How do the managers have an influence in resolving the issues related to absenteeism in health care industry?

Q3. What are the issues related with absenteeism that are faced by the absence management? 

This segment of the paper would look to address the issues in association to absenteeism and thereby would be able to resolve answers that can mitigate these issues.   

In accordance to Lieke et al., (2016), absenteeism can be referred to as an involuntary absence that takes place due to certain aspects that are incontrollable on the part of the employees and the process of voluntary absence is associated with the absence that takes place when an employee makes their own decision whether to go for work or not. Bouville et al., (2018) explained that it is challenging to make a variation among the voluntary and involuntary absence in a firm. As explained by Mageeet al., (2017), in accordance to the standpoint of a process, there are many factors that have an impact on absenteeism in order to have an effect absence on the health employees in a health care company. The factors that are associated are primarily segmented in three categories that are inclusive of the factor of workplace, personal factor and organizational and cultural factors.

Absenteeism can occur even due to the employment sector and the extent of absenteeism due to the low and high resource settings in a public sector like the healthcare firms and public hospitals. Laschinger et al., (2015) has citied that by undertaking an assessment on the effect of the transformations that are taking place in the health care industry due to the changes in the organizations and the process of reimbursements generally in absenteeism. Loeppke et al., (2015) addressed that hospital employees in the sub urban regions and the main districts have been more absent than the staffs in the health centres and the small dispensaries. The factor for absenteeism may even arise from the region of the facility of health care. The level of healthcare in urban and rural areas even undertakes a decision in accordance to the percentage of absenteeism in the healthcare centres (Du, & Leigh 2017). They have discovered that hospitals in the urban regions have more extent of absenteeism in comparison to the rural regions.

Issues related with absenteeism that are faced by the absence management

The level of absenteeism due to illness is generally regarded as an aspect of the macro-economic factor that is required to lower the communal cost and even assists in efficient assignment of the resources (Goldblatt et al., 2017). There has been very less assessment for the level of absenteeism due to illness as the personal aspects have not been explained effectively. The employees related to the absence management are generally obligated to manage the absence in a company. It is precise for the managers to add in all the stakeholders under the regulations that are explained by the management (Follmer, & Jones 2018). The managers need to have an understanding of their positions and are anticipated to incorporate the policies and the practices in the healthcare companies. In case the positions are not understood in an effective manner, then a complication can arise among the organization managers of the health industry.

. The management can stay in contact with their employees who are in leave due to illness and have been planning to get back to work. Smits et al., (2016) have cited that an absence that is 28 days or less is known as short absence. The pattern for absence is assessed in short term aspects. The effective managers encourage the employees to take a leave when they are facing discomforts and problems. This method of the management is regarded as a significant message in the absence due to sickness (Ropponen et al., 2016). The recording of the present employees is even crucial.

It is even essential for the management associated with the absence management in order to assess the history of the ones who are absent in a company (Lanctôt, & Guay2014). The management are given precise training so that they become competent of recognising the transformations in the attitude of the employees. The welfare of the employees needs to be looked upon as well in order to mitigate the level of absence due to illness in the company (de Sousa Sena et al., 2017).

This section of the paper highlights the process that has been undertaken by the researcher in order to have an idea about the method that would be undertaken in order to gather the data that is essential for the completion of the paper in accordance to the topic.

The aim of the data collection process of the paper has been to discover the impact of absenteeism in the absence management in the healthcare sector. The paper is a descriptive design and the paper is constructed by depending on the secondary data in order to undertake critical assessment. In this paper, the researcher has utilised the general sources of the secondary data. The secondary data are gathered from the sources like the articles, books and journals, reports from the health care sector, internet sources and annual report of various healthcare businesses (Frey et al., 2015).  The sources of the secondary data are even available by taking assistance of the earlier researches and these are the cost efficient and cost effective process. The secondary data even explains the current issues and it is reasonable as it reduces the costs that are associated with the collection of the primary data (Kaynak et al., 2016). 

Factors that have an impact on absenteeism in healthcare sector

In this paper, the researcher has gathered information from healthcare sector of Australia and their websites. The researcher can even take assistance of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as this centre provides information and details about any information associated with Australia. The data that has been gathered are not premium or effective data as there was no access to this premium information about the companies and various sectors of Australia (Joyce et al., 2016). Hence, qualitative method has been used in order to undertake the secondary assessments.

In this paper, qualitative data has been gathered and it has been evaluated by taking assistance of the qualitative data assessment method. The researcher has segmented the data that has been gathered into several themes (Ilies et al., 2016). The data has been collected from the financial websites and annual reports and this data has been taken through statistical analysis. As explained by Yang et al., (2015), the thematic data assessment is the general form of the qualitative data evaluation and it primarily concentrates on pinpointing, assessing and prioritising on the research questions that have been constructed earlier. The similar kind of data have been connected and presented in tables in order to observe the findings.  

The data that has been collected explains that there are several factors that have an impact on the absenteeism in the health care company. The factors has been categorised in three thematic sections that are known as the personal, workplace and cultural factors. This section would explain each one of them.

Theme 1: Factors that have an impact on absenteeism in healthcare sector

The extent of absenteeism is very frequent in the public sector due to the low and the high setting of the resources. Bauer, & Sousa-Poza (2015) have explained that absenteeism in public sector is higher as the employees are confident of a fact that they would be receiving their salary irrespective of their performance in the workplace.

The size of the organization can have an influence on the absenteeism level as it is seen that bigger companies have greater level of bureaucracy and less amount of cohesiveness and therefore the efforts of a single employee is not noticed. In smaller companies, the level of absenteeism becomes lower as in this case the employees have a sense of bonding and their performance is always under the scrutiny (Ferreira et al., 2015).

The location of the health care centres have an impact on absenteeism as it is seen that distance among their workplace and their abode would have an impact on absenteeism as various external factors would restrict the employees from coming to office (Buzeti et al., 2016).

 The level of load of work even determines the level of absenteeism. The rise in the workload even leads to a rise in the long term and short term absence (De Cuyper et al., 2017). The absenteeism level can be determined by this factor as well.

The working environment of the employees in the health care companies can even have an effect on the level of absenteeism as it is seen that nurses have been dissatisfied with the quality of service that has been offered and in certain cases the kind of jobs they have been performing (Main et al., 2016).

The individual factors are inclusive of the marital status, age, and gender and health status and hierarchy level of the individuals. The individual factors would be able to determine the level of absenteeism and thereby would be able to explain the factors that may have an impact.

The relationship with the employees and the policies and the extent of grievance handling by the employees and thereby determine the level of absenteeism (Amick et al., 2017). The level of leadership style is even considered to be another factor as well. 

The cultural effects like the social events that employees need to attend like marriages, burials, bad weather can explain the level of absenteeism that takes place in the healthcare sector. Hence, the determination of all these factors would be able to determine the impact of absenteeism. 

The managers have an influence on the performance that is given by the employees in the healthcare sector. The managers who are associated with the healthcare business in Australia undertakes an evaluation of the performance of the employees on an annual and quarterly basis and thereby assisting the managers in discovering the aspects where developments can be undertaken. The managers in this sector have been going through various assessments and have taken steps with the help of which they would be able to improve their operations. 

The Australian healthcare organizations have a belief that employees and manpower is very crucial in order to increase the level of service and to improve the service quality towards their patients. The companies therefore put their focus on training and developing them and keeping them updated with the new and improved medicinal technologies that have been introduced in the business. The rise in the allocation of authorities and powers among the employees and making them participate in the decision making process can lower the extent of absenteeism. 

The assessment of the themes that have been taken into consideration explains that all the variables that have been taken into consideration have impact absenteeism and thereby having an impact on the absence management of the healthcare sector. 

The results indicate that the level of absenteeism would lower if the influences of the managers and the issues associated with absenteeism are regulated and controlled. The factors that are associated with absenteeism need to be assessed as well in order to have an idea about the process that can be taken by the absence management in order to mitigate the level of absenteeism (Knight et al., 2017). The results indicate that absenteeism can have serious impact on the absence management as this management level has to undertake measures with the help of which the company can understand the issues and undertake actions with the help of which these issues can be mitigated.

The initiatives of the managers are accountable for the level of absenteeism in the healthcare companies in Australia. The managers need to construct plans and policies with the help of which the employees gain a sense of responsibility and trust and thereby improve their level of performance (Reiman et al., 2017). In this manner, the employees can generate a sense of feeling and confidence which would influence them to come to office and perform their duties. This is an effective step that can be helpful for mitigating absenteeism and thereby lowering the impact on the absence management in the healthcare sector in Australia. The results that have been obtained are similar in line with the literature review and therefore is able to reach the research aims and objectives of the paper. 

Conclusion, Limitation and Recommendation

Conclusion (Addressing the aims and questions)

The completion of the paper has been able to successfully explain the aims and the research questions that have been constructed earlier in the paper. The paper has even been able to identifying the real factors and has even been able to addresses the measures that have been taken by the managers in order to mitigate the issue. The research has been able to answer each of the research questions and they are as follows:

Research Question 1

In accordance to the first research question that tries to highlight the key factors that have an impact on absenteeism on healthcare, it is seen that all the factors have been recognised and these factors can have a significant amount of impact on the extent of absenteeism.

Research Question 2

In accordance to this question that looks to answer the influences of the managers, it is seen that performance of the employees, training and development, communication etc has a big role to play in the extent of absenteeism in health care sector.     

Research Question 3

The last question looks to answer the issues associated to absenteeism and the results have been able to recognise the main issues that have been helpful to the researcher in completing the paper and answering the issues that was pertinent to the topic.

The limitations that have been recognised in this paper have been the restraint of time that has restricted the researcher to collect much more data. The other limitation has been the financial factor due to which the researcher could not make use of extensive technological tools in order to bring out much effective results.     

The assessment of the topic has been able to provide recommendations with the help of which the issue that has been discussed in this paper can be mitigated. The management should undertake frequent assessment of the absenteeism level of the employees in order to understand the issues that are leading to a rise in absenteeism. The management should even construct plans and policies in accordance to the welfare of the employees so that they can gain a sense of confidence and thereby is able to lower their level of absenteeism.

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