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Prior to widespread social insurance, European governments experimented with a variety of programs to protect workers from income loss due to illness. This paper examines the consequences for worker absenteeism of making sickness insurance coverage voluntary or compulsory. Medical benefits appear to have reduced absenteeism for all workers. The effect of paid sick leave depended on insurance fund membership status. Better-paid workers found it easier to take time off in compulsory than in voluntary funds. Distinctive information problems plagued voluntary systems, and eventually were resolved by rejecting the voluntary ideal and forcing all workers into a single risk pool.

Many studies have shown that an unfavourable psychosocial environment increases the risk of mental and physical illness, as well as absenteeism, or sickness absence. However, more costly than absenteeism is presenteeism, where a person is present at work even though disabled by a mental or physical illness. We sought to identify factors explaining why workers would come to work even when their health is impaired. In a cross‐sectional design data were collected from 3825 employees of a Canadian organisation. The results show a high occurrence of presenteeism: workers went to work in spite of illness 50% of the time. Presenteeism propensity (the percentage of days worked while ill over total number of sick days) was higher for workers who were ill more often. Heavier workloads, higher skill discretion, harmonious relationships with colleagues, role conflict and precarious job status increased presenteeism, but decision authority did not. Workers reporting high psychological distress and more severe psychosomatic complaints were also more likely to report higher rates of presenteeism. These results suggest that stress research should not only include absenteeism as an outcome indicator, but also consider presenteeism.

Previous studies have demonstrated that perceived job insecurity climate denotes an individual-level stressor. The present study reiterated this notion and investigated whether leadership responsibility moderated the association between perceived job insecurity climate and work-related strain about one year into the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

A sample of full-time workers (N = 1,399) in the USA was recruited, comprising 663 leaders and 763 non-leaders. Employing a cross-sectional design, the authors hypothesized that perceived job insecurity climate would be associated with work-related strain (i.e. burnout, absenteeism and presenteeism) and that these associations were stronger for employees with leadership responsibilities compared to non-leaders.

Findings revealed main effects of perceived job insecurity climate on burnout but not on absenteeism or presenteeism. Furthermore, leadership responsibility moderated the associations between perceived job insecurity climate and two out of three burnout measures in the hypothesized direction. The findings also revealed interaction effects regarding absenteeism and presenteeism, indicating that these associations are only positive and significant for employees with leadership responsibilities.

Perceptions of widespread job insecurity engender strain among leaders while simultaneously implying a heightened need for effective leadership. Organizations and practitioners should take the present findings into consideration when implementing preventive and restorative measures to address leaders' health and organizational competitiveness when job insecurity increases.

This study found that, as an individual stressor, perceived job insecurity climate is more detrimental to employees with leadership responsibility than to non-leaders.

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.

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.

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

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

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between organizational safety climate and organizational health performance outcomes (i.e. absenteeism, presenteeism, health care utilization) mediated by individual worker health. The authors used three pathways to examine this relationship: a physical pathway starting with physical safety climate and mediated by musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), a psychosocial pathway starting with psychosocial safety climate and mediated by emotional exhaustion, and a combined pathway starting with psychosocial safety climate and mediated by both MSDs and emotional exhaustion.

Three mediational multilevel analyses were conducted using a sample of 8,761 employees working in 177 health care organizations.

Although the findings did not support the hypothesized physical pathway, they showed that the psychosocial pathway worked satisfactorily for two of the three health performance outcomes (absenteeism and presenteeism). The combined physical and psychosocial pathway explained differences in the third outcome: health care utilization.

This is one of the few studies to include both physical and psychosocial pathways that lead to employee health and organizational performance. The results underscore the importance of paying attention to psychological health and safety in the health care workplace. Not only for the psychological health of employees, but also to improve their physical health and subsequent organizational health performance.

The absentee — turnover continuum Even during economic downturns, absenteeism and labour turnover are major problems in many industries and in various parts of the globe. Further, it is important to realise that the two are closely‐linked phenomena — they may be considered as points on the employee alienation continuum. It should also be recognised that the strategies an alienated employee may use depend on whether or not the labour force is unionised, and how effective the union is in gaining its members' goals. Thus the continuum of strategies used by the alienated worker ranges from individual to collective means (see Figure 1)

In Sweden, leave due to sickness was high during the 1990s. The Swedish Social Insurance Agency was able to decrease sick days in the period between 2000 and 2010 but sick days are rising again in Sweden, mostly due to psychological problems among women and partly due to their work environment. It is important to find methods to identify poor work settings to prevent absenteeism due to sickness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors created a web questionnaire focusing on the organizational setting and its impact on employee wellbeing – reported as mental energy, work-related exhaustion and work satisfaction. The questionnaire measures good and poor work environment factors to help managers improve organizational settings. The questionnaire was validated qualitatively and quantitatively.

It is possible to measure individual wellbeing in an organizational context at an early stage. The authors followed a company undergoing organizational change and identified groups at risk of developing illness.

Managers uncertain about employee mental status can measure employee wellbeing easily and cost effectively to prevent illness.

The authors created a method, statistically evaluated, to proactively identify good and poor work environments to promote healthy co-workers.

The purpose of this paper is to compare sickness presence (SP) and sickness absence (SA) regarding the strength of their relationship to health/ill‐health. In a previous Canadian study a stronger association between SP and health/ill‐health than between SA and health/ill‐health was shown.

Five Swedish data sets from the years 1992 to 2005 provided the study populations, including both representative samples and specific occupational groups (n=425‐3,622). Univariate correlations and multiple logistic regression analyses were performed. The data sets contained questions on SP and SA as well as on various health complaints and, in some cases, self‐rated health (SRH).

The general trend was that correlations and odds ratios increased regularly for both SP and SA, with SP showing the highest values. In one data set, SRH was predicted by a combination of the two measures, with an explained variance of 25 percent. Stratified analyses showed that the more irreplaceable an individual is at work, the larger is the difference in correlation size between SP and SA with regard to SRH. SP also showed an accentuated and stronger association with SRH than SA among individuals reporting poor economic circumstances.

The results support the notion that SA is an insufficient, and even misleading, measure of health status for certain groups in the labor market, which seem to have poorer health than the measure of SA would indicate.

A combined measure of sickness presence and absence may be worth considering as an indicator of both individual and organizational health status.

Based on the nursing occupation within the UK and The Netherlands' health sectors, which are both highly regulated with policies to increase inclusiveness, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the interplay between employment conditions and policy measures at sectoral level, in order to identify how these both facilitate and limit employment participation for disabled workers.

The research was exploratory in character using qualitative and comparative methods within a case study approach. It draws on statistical data, document analysis, focus group discussion and interviews with key actors in the health sectors in both countries.

Whether the social or medical model predominates, their combined use encourages the employment of disabled persons in the health sector. Arguably the social model, focusing on structural changes, can be seen as more enabling. The Dutch comparison shows that encouraging a sector‐specific approach, with increased social partnership dialogue, facilitates the implementation of the social model, resulting in sectorally‐appropriate enabling measures.

This research highlights the need for a sector‐specific approach to disability policy, with development of sectoral monitoring data and evaluation of impact by the social partners.

While previous academic research focused on the aggregated (national) level only, this research investigates the interplay between training, employment, working conditions and policy measures at sectoral and occupational levels, with a view to identifying their influence on employment opportunities for persons with disabilities.

The aim of this research is to determine the extent to which the human resource (HR) function can screen and potentially predict suicidal employees and offer preventative mental health assistance.

Drawing from the 2019 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (N = 56,136), this paper employs multivariate binary logistic regression to model the work-related predictors of suicidal ideation, planning and attempts.

The results indicate that known periods of joblessness, the total number of sick days and absenteeism over the last 12 months are significantly associated with various suicidal outcomes while controlling for key psychosocial correlates. The results also indicate that employee assistance programs are associated with a significantly reduced likelihood of suicidal ideation. These findings are consistent with conservation of resources theory.

This research demonstrates preliminarily that the HR function can unobtrusively detect employee mental health crises by collecting data on key predictors.

In the era of COVID-19, employers have a duty of care to safeguard employee mental health. To this end, the authors offer an innovative way through which the HR function can employ predictive analytics to address mental health crises before they result in tragedy.