Strategies in Absence Management

The purpose of this paper was to demonstrate the link between theory, research and the development of intervention strategies to reduce absenteeism in a large Australian manufacturing organization. A causal model was tested on a sample of 310 blue-collar employees at the organization. The LISREL and tobit results indicated that several factors had a significant effect on the level of absenteeism. These causal factors comprised routinization, supervisory support, job motivation, external responsibilities, accumulated sick leave, and previous warnings. Intervention strategies based on these results are described together with initial findings regarding their effectiveness in reducing absenteeism.