Managers’ Staffing Responses to Absences Escalate as Duration Increases, Finds IBI Study

SAN FRANCISCO - April 24, 2014 - PRLog -- Managers’ staffing responses to employee absences escalate as the duration of the absences increases and managers seek to mitigate any negative consequences of the absence on the business, according to preliminary findings of ongoing research being conducted by the Integrated Benefits Institute. The Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI) is the leading workforce health and productivity research and measurement organization.

Managers are more likely to take no action if a worker’s absence is short (one to three days), but, as the duration of absence extends to two weeks or to one month, managers are increasingly willing to assign work to others, bring in substitute workers, increase the use of overtime and even hire new employees, according to the study.

“All of these impacts—staff replacement, overtime, output delays and effects on team members—are associated with additional costs beyond the workers’ wages,” wrote IBI executive vice president Kimberly Jinnett, PhD, author of the study.

Doing nothing could be costly as well, according to the study. When managers don’t respond, there are costs such as output delays and effects on team members because employers may allow work to go undone, rather than respond to shorter-duration absences.

“Managers may assume that, for a short-duration absence, the absent worker can make up the time or the impact of lost work will be relatively low. But as duration increases, the impact becomes hard to ignore and the manager responds,” Jinnett added.

According to the study findings, managers’ responses include the following actions:

One day: At one day of absence, 82% of managers are most likely to do nothing in response; 9.5% assign the work to other employees and 9.5% use substitute workers.

Three days: When the absence increases to three days, only 50% of managers do nothing; 29% assign work to other employees and 18% use substitute workers.

Two weeks: When the absence grows to two weeks, managers most frequently assign work to other employees (58%), find substitute workers (18%) and use overtime (17%). Less than 7% of managers do nothing in response.

One month: After a one-month absence, employers assigning work to other employees diminishes slightly (49%), while the use of substitute workers increases (28%). There is also an increase in the hiring of new employees (4%) and other management responses (6%).

“Clearly, managers choose different responses to absence as the duration increases.Those choices have costs for the company as other workers are relied upon during normal working hours or through use of overtime to complete the work of the absent employee. Often, substitute workers may not have the level of training required to conduct the job at the same level as the absent worker and output delays may be expected,” Jinnett said.

“To compete in an ever-increasingly globalized marketplace, employers need a healthy, highly-performing workforce and to minimize costs associated with ill health. Although most employers are well aware of the impact of poor health on medical costs, few have good measures of how health influences absence and job performance (aka presenteeism); how absence and job performance influence employer opportunity costs (that have been termed “lost productivity”); and how health-related productivity affects the bottom line. This study sets out to answer these measurement questions,” wrote Jinnett.

The report is the first in a series from IBI’s ongoing study, “The Impact of Health on Job Performance and Productivity.” The research findings are preliminary and include data from two employers, a county government and a hospital. As more employers are recruited to the study, IBI will gather additional information from employees and their managers that can contribute to helping employers better understand business impacts, and take appropriate steps to mitigate unintended costs and embrace the full value of workforce health improvements.

About the Integrated Benefits Institute
The Integrated Benefits Institute (IBI), an independent nonprofit membership organization, is the leading provider of health and productivity research, measurement and benchmarking. Founded in 1995, IBI provides members with data, research and tools to make sound decisions in how they invest in the health of their workforces. Its 950 members include companies implementing health-related programs to benefit their employees and business, and providers of health and productivity services. Additional information about IBI may be found at http://www.ibiweb.org