Organizational factors and Absenteeism : A Comparison between Four Occupational Grades

Purpose The aim of this paper is to explore organizational factors which are responsible for sickness absence among occupational grades. Design/methodology/approach The approach taken is a quantitative analysis with a multinomial logit model. Findings As unexpected, for blue-collar employees, skill variety, monotony and flexible schedule don’t affect absenteeism but in the same time, colleagues support and autonomy increase short-term absenteeism. For lower white-collar, autonomy is negatively linked to three categories of absenteeism. This determinant of absenteeism seems quite strong for this grade. For clerks, flexible schedule increases short-term absences but decreases long-term absences. For upper white-collar, monotony and flexible schedule have a strong impact on absenteeism. Whatever the employees’ grade, hierarchical control and bullying have the effect of increasing absenteeism. Practical implications We emphasize the importance of Human Resources Practices differentiated occupational grades. Originality/value The interest of the study is to examine the relations between a large set of organizational factors (including bullying, tension with the public, aggression from the public) and absenteeism after controlling for many variables (size of the organization, work sector, gender, age, tenure, work status, social and occupation group, and position) and to compare the results between occupational grades.