Impact of Absenteeism c-n Employee Satisfaction

Abstract

Absenteeism is “non-attendance of employees for scheduled work when they are expected to attend”. Absenteeism is making a heavy impact on the daily activities of the organization. In addition, it exerts a considerable indirect influence on organizational effectiveness, employee administration and dissatisfaction of the workers who attend the organization regularly on time. Many research studies have been conducted on studying absenteeism in many countries including Sri Lanka. However, most of them have been focused on large scale enterprises and less attention is paid on cottage, small and medium scale businesses. This research fills this gap and studies the Impact of Absenteeism on employee satisfaction in the bakery industry in the Southern Province, Sri Lanka. The research was done as a survey among 40 small scale bakeries in the province. The sample was selected according to the convenient method due to the absence of a complete list of the population. A structured questionnaire with open and close-ended questions was used for the study and it included questions on general information, employee attitudes towards leaders, job satisfaction and absenteeism, reasons for the absenteeism of the respondents. The survey results showed that the inter-relationship between influencing factors on absenteeism and satisfaction of employees. Most of workers (55%) were below 30 years; married (90%); 75% of workers represented ordinary levels or below and no any workers with higher qualifications. Majority of them had five years experience (75%).Only 15% of workers come to the Bakeries more than 2km and 60% of them come by buses or walking. Most of them (75%) had good health while only 25% of workers had weak health; 25% of workers had taken leaves without approval and firms had taken actions (85%) to prevent this unethical behavior. Further, it is notable that the majority of workers (75%) had strong or positive attitudes about their managers or owners. Therefore, they are satisfied with their bakeries and their activities. Results of this study ultimately concluded that the attitudes of workers towards managers or owners are positive and Absenteeism Has siffiaficaant grqpqy.t ^ on employee satisfaction.