Sick Leave Case Study

1477 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Employee engagement sies college of management studies working paper series

1.0 Introduction
Employees worldwide are talking sick leave unnecessarily, which is costing employers billions of dollars each year. People are facing inflexibility, pressure and stress, fuelling the drive to take sickies. Also the fact that people are entitled to sick is a further driver. Leadership is an essential function in any organisation. Schermerhorn, Davidson, Poole, Woods, Simon and McBarron (2013, page 339) define leading as ‘arousing enthusiasm and directing efforts towards organisational goals.’ This is also one of the 4 main functions of management and should be a solid grounding in any organisation. The following report examines leadership within organisations, raises leadership theories and recommendations that organisations can implement to reduce sick leave.
2.0 Problem Identification
Evidence in the case study about employees having inflexibility and performance pressures raises a management problem, which is lack of leadership. There is miscommunication amongst colleagues, which leads to conflict between all areas of organisations. It is also evident there is no clear workforce engagement between employees and management in turn causing employees to be unenthusiastic, uninspired and not committed to their work. Without adequate leadership techniques, sick leave cannot be reduced as employees are not being engaged and lead in a way that makes them proud of their organisation and working in an enthusiastic and inspiring environment.

3.0 Workforce Engagement
Employee engagement is the investment of physical, cognitive and emotional energy and their full deployment of themselves into work roles or tasks (Kahn, 1990). Employee engagement is key to ensure employees are inspired and enthusiastic about their work. Wi...

... middle of paper ...

...mensions correctly it will cause employees to become engaged, evolved and help with decision making in the organisation.

6.0 Conclusion
It is evident that strong leadership and certain techniques form an important component of any organisation. With proper implementation of transformational leadership and workforce engagement techniques, any organisation can have an impact on its sick leave figures, ultimately reducing them to some degree. By using workforce engagement techniques employees will become engaged, inspired and enthused about their work and they will have a sense of placement in their organisation. A transformational manager will create not only engagement within an organisation, but employees will become more creative and be committed, particularly in decision-making. These techniques should be implemented in order to reduce sick leave of organisations

Show More
Related

  • Paid Sick Time Case Study

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    Arizona employers who do not currently offer paid sick time will be required to start accruing as of July 1, 2017. There has been an enormous amount of debate over whether there is a need to offer sick time, especially to employees who have paid time off which can be used for anything, including sick days. On the other hand, there is a significant need for employees who are not offered any paid sick time or paid time off. You will find a mix of employees and employers on either side and sometimes on both sides of this debate. Few will change their opinion when they think of themselves as the employee versus the employer and vice versa. Employers and employees have raised concerns alike regarding whether providing days specifically denoted as sick will encourage more unplanned days off, will negatively impact those that do not get sick, and whether it is fair to require sick time versus paid time off in which we can all agree everyone should have paid sick time when the

    Read More

  • New and Improved Rewards at Work

    1579 Words  | 4 Pages

    Workers feeling, which includes competitive compensation and reward strategies, professional growth and development, career paths and succession plans and the organizations leadership and culture are contributing factors of employee engagement

    Read More

  • Kraft Foods, High Performance Work Systems (HPWS)

    1744 Words  | 4 Pages

    This method also empowered the employees giving them an opportunity to increase their skill levels and an opportuni...

    Read More

  • Sapa Strengths And Weaknesses

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    If every employee at the organization was doing a job or task that he/she is strong in their would not be any weakness showing in the organization. Everyone is at the peak performance trying to best the top person in the organization. I believe that the managers as well as everyone else would enjoy the benefits of reducing the turnover, greater productivity and profitability. Once everyone is on the same page and working together, sharing, and using each other strengths to better the organization, the more the employees would not mind working and possible getting more involved with the organization. If this was to happen the company’s attendance would always be up and so places would not be short staffed. When an employee is happy with the management and the stress levels are low at work it makes the work environment more safer and workable. If I was in a work environment where the stress levels are high, poor management, and their is a great deal of employee turnover, I would not be there or stay too long. If by chance I was still there, I would not be happy and hate to go to work. If an organization was a “strength based” management, they would receive the best customer services review and the company would be growing and using their abilities to the fullest. Also if the company was a “strength based” organization then everyone would be successful and exceeding in their work. I believe that if one organization starts being strength based there would be more on

    Read More

  • Privacy in the Workplace

    1625 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ryan, D. & Watson, R. (2004). A healthier future; Workplace stress is increasingly recognized as a contributing factor to employee absence and illness. Investors in Health (IIH) is one response to the problem. Occupational Health, July 3, 2004, p. 20. Retrieved on October 21, 2004 from InfoTrac OneFile Database.

    Read More

  • Health and Wellness int the Workplace

    4038 Words  | 9 Pages

    We, as people in the workforce, are depended on to follow through with work commitments. A healthy employee is able to do more and feel well enough to enjoy it. We strive to do our best but how can we when we have low morale at the office. Healthy employees directly impact the bottom-line of all companies, from the sole proprietorship to the large corporation (1996). Keeping health-care costs low, boosting morale, increasing productivity, and reducing the absent rate is a payoff that every good business owner should recognize. When a small business is trying to become larger, having employees who are healthy and stress free is important. Losing a member of an already small number due to being ill is not the way to succeed. Working in an environment that is happy and productive is the perfect place to work, regardless of what the job is.

    Read More

  • Leadership in Healthcare Management

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    A manager’s leadership style must influence staff and others to take them seriously. A manager sets the tempo for the employees’ work ethic. Effective leadership from healthcare managers is important to the modern healthcare reform (Kumar, 2013). Leadership engagement in healthcare explains how a problem could affect a healthcare organization. Managers that hold leadership roles must adopt a certain style that can be functional for his or her initial organization to be successful. Performance improvement can be a very serious aspect of leadership engagement (Croxton, 2011). Healthcare managers need to have people from all areas involved to work effectively. Without the consistency of getting all staff and physicians involved, the organization may suffer greatly.

    Read More

  • Sick Leave Case Study

    1236 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this report, it will be argued that the issue of sick leave in the Australian work force can directly relate to a weak organisation culture displayed within an organisation. Every business must have strong leadership traits where both the workers and the employers interact where there is encouragement and support for continual growth. Also being argued by both Choi and Ruona (2011) and Weiner (2009), they believe that organisation culture is one of the most important contextual factors that increase or decrease the level of readiness for change (Haffar, Al-Karaghouli, & Ghoneim, 2012). The workplace mustn’t be a chore, instead a place where staff can grow has humans and become more useful to society and importantly the business. This means business must cater for employees needs and work hard to satisfy their unlimited wants.

    Read More

  • Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    Definition. Schaufeli’s (as cited in Truss, Delbridge, Alfes, Shantz, & Soane, 2014, p. 26) ideas on employee engagement can be explained by using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. Job demands and availability or lack of resources, both job and personal, either contribute to or deter employee engagement, this is illustrated by the JD-R (Truss et al., 2014). On the positive side, according to Truss et al. (2014) job and personal resources “foster engagement in terms of vigor (energy), dedication (persistence) and absorption (focus)” (p. 26). An employee who has the resources needed to do their job is better equipped to do the job and thereby better able to perform their job (Truss et al., 2014). Employees who are better able to meet job

    Read More

  • Paid Sick Leave

    1517 Words  | 4 Pages

    Paid sick leave is an entitlement for employees within any organisation, it is meant to be used for when an employee is sick or has family obligations, such as caring for sick loved ones. As in the article ‘Anger at plan to cut medic’s sick leave’ unlike annual leave sick leave cannot be accumulated and employees cannot obtain compensation for sick leave not taken (2004). Paid sick leave is necessary for employees as the entitlement gives them the option for when they cannot attend work due to an illness, sick leave also helps the organisation, as employees with sick leave are able to work reliably and efficiently, and by allowing a sick employee off for a single day can prevent the whole organisation from catching the sickness and reducing productivity. However sick leave schemes are open to abuse, it requires strong administration and planning from the organisation’s human resources department as well as the employer. Researching and planning a sick leave policy plan in which benefits both the employee and employer would help reduce the problem of sick leave abuse while keeping the entitlement available. This paper will discuss what sick leave is, why and how it is abused, why it is a problem for organisations and what type of plans can be used to minimise the abuse of sick leave within an organisation.

    Read More

  • Managing Diversity in the Workplace

    1188 Words  | 3 Pages

    In business, the effectiveness of an organization rests on the ability of the management to interact with its employees and to motivate the wo...

    Read More

  • Organizational Change In British Airways: Successful Organization Change

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    The sense-making approach of unfreezing, changing and freezing (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2009) was inappropriate in this scenario. Management has made a decision to reduce their workforce continuously; however, the change does not end with the layoffs, rather, it is a continuous change as they continue to reduce employees and focus on the existing employees’ morale. Middle management predominantly executes sense-making approach by as aligning the company objectives with their employees (Banker, 2012). The sense-making approach may have been the culprit of the communication breakdown between employees and British Airways CEO regarding absenteeism. The processual approach was much more fitting with continuous layoff that will allow them to pursue their next implementation. Processual approach is on-going and focused on long-term results while sense-making approach is a prescriptive change. The sense-making approach might have worked if processual approach was established first during the reduction in force, prior to introducing the swipe card implementation. Preferably, British Airways should have engaged in change management approach first to address the system change in a large scale. Organizational development approach would have assessed the entire organization and discovered that the low morale may

    Read More

  • Annual Leave Case Study

    879 Words  | 2 Pages

    (a) 8 days for every 12 months of continuous service with the same employer if he has been employed by that employer for a period of less than 2 years;

    Read More

  • Case Study Of Sick Leave Costing Employers

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the main problems within the case study of Sick Leave Costing Employers is the Organisational Culture of the business. Organisational Culture is the system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organisation and guides the behaviour of its members (Schermerhorn, Davidson, Poole, Woods, Simon, & McBarron, 2014, p. 211). Organisational Culture is an evident problem, this is because if a business does not show its employees shared beliefs, and a variety of values then the members are not going to be guided in the right manner that society wants and accepts. Organisational Culture is a method that a business learns over time as it overcomes hurdles within its external environment or its problems of internal integration. (Edgar & Schein, 1990, pp. 109-119). As...

    Read More

  • The Future Of Work And The Future Of Work

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Today’s world, the composition and how work is done has massively changed and is still continuing to change. Work is now more complex, more team base, depends greatly on technological and social skills and lastly more mobile and does not depend on geography. Companies are also opting for ways to help their employees perform their duties effectively so that huge profits are realized in the long term .The changes in the workplaces include Reduction in the structure of the hierarchy ,breakdown in the organization boundaries , improved and better management tactics and perspectives and lastly better workplace condition and health to the employees. (Frank Ackerman, Neva R. Goodwin, Laurie Dougherty, Kevin Gallagher, 2001)

    Read More

More about Sick Leave Case Study

Open Document