Are happy employees healthy employees? Researching the effects of employee engagement on absenteeism

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Abstract
In 2007, a survey was conducted to measure the levels of workplace engagement for British Columbian civil servants. Following the Heskett et al. model of the “service profit chain” (1994, 2002), the government's primary concerns were the increasing attrition rates and their effects on service delivery. Essentially, the model demonstrated that employees who were more engaged were more committed to their work and more likely to stay within the civil service and that this culminated in improved customer service. Under the joint rubrics of absenteeism and job satisfaction, this study uses a construct of engagement (i.e., job satisfaction) to test whether different levels of engagement have any effect on the amount of sick time (absenteeism) an employee incurs. Specifically, the author looks at whether there is any correlation between the amount of sick time used and an individual's level of engagement and proposes that there is an inverse negative relationship: as job engagement increases, sick time used decreases. Testing the old adage “A happy employee is a healthy employee,” this research demonstrates that, though a more engaged employee may use less sick time, the differences in use between highly engaged employees and those not engaged are fairly marginal and that correlations are further confounded by a host of other (often missing) factors.

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