The Influence of Organizational Incentives on Absenteeism: Sick Leave Use among Correctional Workers*

Absenteeism creates problems for organizations. The policies of the Civil Service Retirement System, available to federal workers hired before 1987, allow unused sick leave to be added to length of service when workers retire. The policies of the Federal Employees Retirement System, on the other hand, create a use or lose situation. Yearly data on sick leave, a measure of absenteeism, for employees at the Federal Bureau of Prisons were examined for 1994 through 2003. The results of multilevel analysis confirmed that different incentive structures of the two federal retirement systems produced differences in the use of sick leave. The analysis also demonstrated that the use of leave was impacted by differences in the “environment” at the respective prisons. Finally, some preliminary and rough cost figures are presented to give some idea of the financial costs associated with the greater leave associated with the newer federal retirement system. THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL INCENTIVES ON ABSENTEEISM: SICK LEAVE USE AMONG CORRECTIONAL WORKERS Unscheduled absences, often termed absenteeism, are associated with lower levels of organizational productivity (Dilts, Deitsch, & Paul, 1985; Harrison & Price, 2003; Huczynski & Fitzpatrick, 1989; Rhodes & Steers, 1990; Steers & Rhodes, 1978), and this is particularly true for correctional organizations which are labor-intensive. Approximately 80% of the costs of operating prisons over the life of a prison are for direct payments of wages and fringe benefits (Crants, 1991). In addition to the labor-intensive nature of prisons, correctional facilities have many mandatory posts, positions that must be filled regardless of whether the scheduled worker reports for duty or not. From prior discussions between the lead author and wardens at federal prisons, wardens report that most mandatory posts are custody positions that monitor inmate behavior. When unscheduled leave occurs, another worker must be scheduled to fill the post if it is mandatory. Not only are there managerial inefficiencies and costs associated with scheduling replacement workers, wardens noted that the posts are typically filled by workers who have already completed a normal shift (or work week) or by workers who would normally fill different functions in the prison, such as education or other prison programs. Under both replacement scenarios, the productivity of the agency is impacted as either overtime wages are paid to the replacement worker or a function of the prison is temporarily vacated. Neither is beneficial for the correctional organization in the long run. Given the financial and organizational problems associated with absenteeism, management at correctional agencies would seem to have a continuing interest in monitoring and developing incentives to address the use of unscheduled leave, which usually takes the form of sick leave. Despite this interest, there are few published studies that empirically examined the antecedents of absenteeism in correctional agencies (Gross, Larson, Urban, & Zupan, 1994; 2 Lambert, 2001; Lombardo, 1981; Venne, 1997). A recent exception is a study of the antecedents of self-reports of absenteeism among workers at the Federal Bureau of Prisons (Lambert, Camp, Edwards, & Saylor, 2005). The study prepared by Lambert et al. built upon earlier work (Brooke, 1986; Brooke & Price, 1989; Nicholson, Brown, & Chadwick-Jones, 1976), and it indicated that self-reported absenteeism was related to individual factors, such as age and gender, as well as attitudinal measures, such as commitment to the organization and job satisfaction. The results suggested that the use of sick leave was influenced by factors not related to whether or not employees were ill. This suggests that sick leave could be influenced and perhaps manipulated by factors that may be under the control of correctional agencies. Nonetheless, the Lambert et al. study did not examine whether sick leave use, as an indicator of absenteeism, was influenced by different organizational incentives. This is an important practical concern as incentives are under the control of the organization and not a characteristic of the individuals employed by the organization. The current analysis adds to the literature on the use of sick leave in particular, and absenteeism in general, by investigating whether the use of sick leave is influenced by different incentive structures. This analysis is unusual in that official records of sick leave were examined. The primary hypothesis tested was whether correctional workers employed under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) use more sick leave than workers employed under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). Although there are many differences between the two retirement systems, the difference that is most relevant for the present study pertains to the disposition of unused sick leave upon retirement.