Determinants of sick-leave duration: a tool for managers?

Area of Science:

• Occupational health
• Human resource management
• Biostatistics

Background:

• Sick-leave episodes pose challenges for managers.
• Understanding factors influencing sick-leave duration is crucial for effective management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify key factors influencing sick-leave duration.
• To develop tools for managers to predict and manage employee sick-leave.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study of sick-leave files from a Dutch university (2005).
• Analysis of risk factors including age, gender, tenure, work status, leave cause/history, salary, and education.
• Calculation of odds ratios for different sick-leave spell lengths (or=91 days).
• Application of multiple regression models to assess factor influence.

Main Results:

• Individually, age, gender, employment duration, sick-leave cause/history, salary, and staff type significantly influenced sick-leave duration.
• In multiple models, gender, salary, age, and sick-leave history/cause remained significant predictors.
• Predictive models showed reasonable accuracy for medium/long sick-leave spells, particularly for extended absences, when including psychological, work-related, salary, and gender factors.

Conclusions:

• The predictive power of studied risk factors for sick-leave duration is limited and varies by spell length.
• Extended sick-leave spells (>or=91 days) were more reasonably predicted compared to medium or long spells.
• Identified risk factors can potentially serve as decision-making tools for managers, especially for predicting prolonged absences.