Did you know that having a habit of checking your private email during business hours is a form of absenteeism?In general, this practice can be defined as a deliberate absence from the office during legal business hours. It can also be described as abandonment, the duties, rights and functions of a specific position, but what is behind this desertion?Why does a person become irresponsible in terms of work?
This is one of the most difficult problems to solve due to its great complexity, in addition to being an endemic phenomenon that is not determined by gender, religion or age, it is influenced by multiple factors, including psychosocial ones, although depending on the situation. particular case, they can vary considerably. Then we will explore its causes.
In general, absenteeism is generally classified into the following types:
It is essential to know all these causes to try to understand why it is considered an endemic disease and what consequences it can have, both for the person himself and for the environment that surrounds him, as mentioned above, psychosocial factors are the ones that best explain the absenteeism, but there is great individual variability among them.
In recent decades, work has ceased to be a value in its own right, that is, it has been exploited to such an extent that it lacks intrinsic value. The dreaded? Crisis? He turned many employees into puppets. Their job title is the only way they can move forward and fulfill their obligations.
This means that at the end of the day, the only thing employees end up paying is the end-of-month salary, so they neglect performance and focus on collecting their salary to keep paying all their expenses. The most direct effect of this phenomenon is the depersonalization of the worker, which in turn causes a demotivation that negatively affects their state of mind.
Currently, some companies continue to adopt productive policies based on staff reduction, i. e. they lay off or do not hire new workers, waiting for the same level of production, so they ask workers to increase their responsibilities and tasks, on the same working day and with the same pay.
The result? Overloading duties for a position, demotion and so-called work stress, the latter is the main cause of absenteeism.
Stress arises when there is an imbalance between what the environment requires of us and the resources we have to meet these demands. With regard only to the scope of work, the International Labour Organization (ILO) defines it as a disease that implies “a danger to the economies of industrialized countries”.
Some of the consequences of stress at work occur in the short, medium or long term, depending on each person and their strategies to deal with it, the psychological effects include difficulty concentrating, lack of attention, anxiety or depression, cognitive decline, insomnia and even mental problems.
Physical impacts may include cardiovascular (hypertension, arrhythmias), dermatological (dermatitis, alopecia, hives) and sexual (erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation) or musculoskeletal (cramps, tics, muscle tension).
Thus, we see that this biopsychosocial disorder is not insignificant, neither for organizations nor for workers, so companies need to help their employees free themselves from stress.
An additional problem is simulation. That is, pretending to have an illness or disorder to justify absenteeism at work, because it is a very difficult phenomenon to test and control.
Absenteeism is therefore a problem directly related to company policy, the quality of the working climate and worker dissatisfaction and, like all problems, requires effective and intelligent solutions, in the sense that they will be better the more specific they are. on a case-by-case basis.