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Sickness absence is a major concern for healthcare services and their employees with healthcare workers having higher sickness absence rates compared to the general population. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review randomised control trials (RCTs) that aimed to reduce sickness absence among healthcare workers.

A systematic review was conducted that aimed to include RCTs with study participants who were employed in any part of the healthcare sector. This review included any type of intervention with the primary outcome measure being sickness absence.

Seven studies were included in the review and consisted of one exercise-only intervention, three multicomponent intervention programmes, two influenza vaccination interventions and one process consultation. Three studies (exercise-only, one multicomponent intervention programme and one influenza vaccination intervention) were able to demonstrate a reduction in sickness absence compared to control.

Due to the lack of high-quality evidence, this review identified that there are currently no interventions that healthcare organisations are able to use to effectively reduce sickness absence among their employees. This review also highlights the importance of a standardised measure of sickness absence for healthcare staff, such as shifts.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic review to synthesise such evidence among healthcare workers.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on the relationship between organizational change and sickness absence and to map and describe the prevailing “trends” in the field. In particular, the paper focuses on the indirect links between change and sickness absence and identifies knowledge gaps and novel research opportunities.

A scoping review was conducted seeking to generate a wide-ranging overview of relevant studies. To this end, research articles were collected through different sources of landmark articles, bibliographies and databases.

The association between organizational change and sickness absence is often explained by adverse changes in work characteristics. Such potential mediation or moderation effects, however, are rarely statistically tested. Including such variables in the analyses may represent an important avenue for future research. Additionally, earlier studies have mainly emphasized organization-wide episodic changes. Recently, however, researchers have focused on smaller and frequently implemented changes. Accordingly, the field of organizational change and occupational health may advance by incorporating greater diversity of change type.

The paper demonstrates that attention to the potential health effects of organizational change will remain important as the field of workplace health management proceeds. Research needs to develop beyond attributions of the relationship between change and sickness absence and focus more on statistical testing of linking variables. The unique contribution of this review is therefore that it identifies knowledge gaps and novel avenues for prospective research.

Sickness absence is a major public health and economic problem. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effects of a legislative intervention that concerns reduction of compensation levels in sickness absence in the Slovak Republic. In addition, the study encompasses appraisal of effects reflected by related indicators.

The paper describes an evaluation study, based on national statistics from relevant sources. Numeric data were used for characterizing the dynamics of sickness absence in Slovakia in the years 1997-2013. Statistical programmes join-point and R-environment were used for analytical purposes in terms of Wilcoxon test and linear regression.

The results suggest that following the implementation of the Act No. 462/2003 Coll. the number of new cases as well as the proportion of sickness absence among insured persons decreased by 50 per cent (from 2003 – 60/100 to 2004 – 30,8/100). Average duration of inability to work increased to 6.5 days and there were more women compared to men on sick leave. The most frequent causes of sickness absence were respiratory diseases, muscular-skeletal diseases and injuries outside the workplace.

The trend of sickness absence can be influenced by many others factors, but the research is mainly focussed on legislative impact.

The research indicates an effect of legislative intervention at national level.

The purpose of this study is to find the connection between leader behaviour and employee sickness absence in public administration.

The research data was collected with the help of an online questionnaire. The SPSS statistical programme and structural equation modelling in AMOS were used to analyse the data.

The research was conducted in public administration institutions, and 3,220 employees from public administration were included in the research sample. The author found a negative one-way relationship between certain types of behaviour and sickness absence. The author defines leader behaviour as a multidimensional construct in which each dimension represents a separate cluster of leader behavioural characteristics. Leaders’ “progressiveness” is the most important dimension, and a one-point increase in “progressiveness” (five-point scale) leads to a reduction of 2.8 days in sickness absence for one employee.

The author focused only on one segment of factors (the behaviour of leaders) that affects sickness absence. To explain the maximum possible measure of the variability in sickness absence, it would be best to include several different influencing factors.

The study represents a structured model of the link between sickness absence and leader behaviour. With the model, it is possible to determine which behavioural forms of leaders influence sickness absence, where leader behaviour is treated as a complex whole, and not as an individual behavioural characteristic.

The study addresses calls for research on the relationship between leader behaviour and employee sickness absence within countries.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the associations of employees’ attitudes and human resource arrangements to sickness absence from the perspective of absence culture and work ability.

The study was conducted in one of the largest food industry companies in Finland. Sickness absence register data were obtained from the years 2003 to 2005 and a survey from 2005. This survey included single propositions about work arrangements (five propositions) and attitudes (three propositions) during sickness absence. These were analysed by absence days and short (1‐7 days) and long spells (>7 days).

The attitude of blue‐collar workers who agreed that it is a matter of course that someone is absent was statistically significant regarding sickness absence. They had increased risk for sickness absence days and for short spells. From work arrangements during absence the fact that jobs will wait returning to the workplace decreased the risk for short and long sickness absence spells in both groups. In addition, the fact that the employer will take a substitute during workmates’ absence increased the risk for all measured sickness absence rates among white‐collar workers.

These findings should be noted in enterprises’ human resource management and occupational health services to manage and understand sickness absence.

Although sickness absence has been widely studied, very little is known about sickness absence related work arrangements and attitudes associated with sickness absence. This study increases knowledge about these issues.

There is a growing awareness within organisations of the significance of “green” issues. This paper aims to examine the impact of a public sector organisation's sustainable transport policies on the sickness absence levels of its employees. It focuses on those policies (such as workplace travel plans) which include methods of increasing the use of public transport for the journey to work.

This is an exploratory study, using a quantitative methodology, which analyzes data from a survey of a sample of employees within a large public sector organisation.

The key finding is that sickness absence levels are higher among employees who use public transport to travel to work. A profile of public transport user characteristics most associated with higher absence levels is offered. Moves to act “green” by encouraging greater use of public transport may unintentionally have an adverse effect on sickness absence levels.

This is a study of a sample of employees within a large public sector organisation. The size and character of the sample were restricted by organisational constraints. The results are indicative of a potential area of concern which needs wider investigation.

HR practitioners need to be more closely involved in workplace travel plans and sickness absence variations between different modes of travel to work require careful monitoring.

These results suggest a link between the use of public transport for the journey to work and above average sickness absence levels which may have significant implications for the implementation of workplace travel plans.

There has been a marked increase in the level of absence from work in the UK in recent years. There have also been increases in earnings and sickness benefits, and this paper examines these income variables as determinants of absence.

In Denmark and several other European countries, firms are obliged to cover the first two weeks of sickness. The insurance scheme is provided by government authority and is designed to help small firms with the financial burden related to sickness absence of their workers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of firms’ participation in an insurance scheme on the long-term sickness absence of their employees, using administrative records.

To identify potential moral hazard, the authors use IV approach created by the eligibility threshold, in order to identify the true causal effect of sickness insurance on sickness absence of workers. The authors use the eligibility criterion as an instrument for the participation in the insurance scheme. The authors confirm the presence of moral hazard in insured firms.

The authors show that sickness absence in insured firms is much more prevalent than in uninsured firms. Sickness spells in insured firms are shorter and the conditional probability to return back to work from sickness is much higher in insured firms.

These results suggest that employees in insured firms are less monitored during the first two weeks and that their sickness is less serious. The authors demonstrate in the paper that the minimum cost of the present insurance scheme is similar to about 1,100 man-years. On top of that comes a substantial cost to more short time sickness.

The authors provide additional evidence on this topic using precise administrative spell data combined with socio-economic data. Compared to previous literature, the authors include duration analysis and identify the presence of moral hazard using a Cox proportional hazard model.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relationship between job stress, stress coping ability and performance among Japanese nurses.

Health risk and organization environment as job stress factors, sense of coherence (SOC) as stress coping ability and medical risk indicator and sickness‐absence days as a performance proxy were used to investigate the relationship between stress and performance. Length of professional experience also was included in the investigation.

The findings suggest a possibility that enriching nurses' professional experiences reduces medical risk. There is also a possibility that raising the SOC, while improving organization environment, contributes to reducing sickness‐absence.

A cross‐sectional study of nurses in a single institution was used. In order to generalize the study's results, it will be necessary to conduct multi‐institutional longitudinal studies.

The present study shows key factors affecting medical risk and sickness‐absence leading to a reduced nursing performance.

The aim of the study was to understand the social and organisational factors in the workplace that shape managers' actions and attitudes towards workers with repeated short-term sickness absence.

This was a qualitative interview study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 managers at 15 different workplaces. The analysis had an abductive approach, using thematic analysis which focused on the latent content of managers attitudes towards employees with repeated short-term sickness absence.

Results indicate that the managers' views of people on short-term sick leave shift and move through several phases, which was analysed as they were acts in a play, where their given roles are prescribing which actions to take given the available resources for acting these parts. These acts depict an increasingly controlling attitude, where the sick leave is ultimately seen as an individual problem best managed by repressive tactics.

Role theory offers the possibility to analyse managers' attitudes and behaviours by considering the workplace and the manager-employee relationship as regulated by norms and organisational factors.