Sick-Time Usage By Management and Professional Employees in the Public Sector

Abstract

Absenteeism and its related costs are increasing, yet the causes and consequences are poorly understood. Theories about absenteeism have stemmed primarily from research conducted on blue- collar and clerical workers in the private sector. Very little is known about the absenteeism of public sector managers and professional employees. This study reports research on 644 managers and pro fessionals of a large western U.S. city. Actual sick-time usage was matched against personal, job and attitudinal characteristics of each employee to explore statistical relationships. There are rela tionships between sick-time use and age, sex, race, education, marital status, time with the city and job level of employees. The only hypothesized variables with no relationship were the distance an employee must travel to work and number of children. Furthermore, employees generally felt that rewards work better than penalties. These data may aid managers in establishing policies for coping with this phenomenon.