Organizational justice, sickness absence and employee age

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to study age-related differences in how perceptions of two forms of organizational justice, i.e. procedural and interactional justice, are related to short (i.e. non-certified) spells and long (i.e. medically certified) spells of sickness absence.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a study on a large sample of Finnish public sector employees (n=37,324), in which they matched employees' 2004 survey data with their records-based sick absences in 2005 and 2006.

Findings

The results suggest that age moderates the association between perceptions of procedural justice and long sickness absences after controlling for gender, tenure, occupational group, work unit, job demands and health behaviors. When older employees experienced a high level of procedural justice, they were 12 percent less likely to miss work due to medically certified illnesses. Overall, older employees were less likely to take short, non-certified sickness absences from work. Finally, the results suggest that high-quality relationships with supervisors can prevent both short and long spells of sickness absence at all ages

Originality/value

The study contributes to the literature on age-related differences in the effects of psychosocial workplace conditions (organizational justice) on employee behavior (absenteeism).

Citation

Tenhiälä, A., Linna, A., von Bonsdorff, M., Pentti, J., Vahtera, J., Kivimäki, M. and Elovainio, M. (2013), "Organizational justice, sickness absence and employee age", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 28 No. 7/8, pp. 805-825. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-07-2013-0246