Correlates of employees’ absenteeism and perception on work output

Absenteeism of an employee particularly unauthorized one is often viewed as an indicator of his/her performance. In order to know the main causes of absenteeism and association between the employees’ absenteeism with their selected socio-personal traits a study was conducted on a random sample of 70 respondents working at Meridian Medicare Limited, Solan, Himachal Pradesh. The study revealed that there was moderate rate of absenteeism among the employees. Urgent work coupled with nature of job, illness, family rituals etc were the main reasons for absenteeism. However 93 per cent of the employees were satisfied with their job. Respondents’ age, family background and service experience were found to be positively and significantly associated with absenteeism whereas family size and educational status had no association of significant level with the absenteeism. The study implies that proper incentives like special bonus, cash awards, gift vouchers etc should be provided to the sincere, honest and hardworking employees with assurance of adequate safety measures to reduce fear of risk and accidents among the employees.