Copycat, absent
A small proportion of employees imitate co-worker absence. Chucking a sickie is less appealing when the work team has strong social ties, and team members rely on each other to get the job done.
Historically, research on the causes of absenteeism has tended to look at the characteristics of individual workers, measuring things like health and job satisfaction. Increasingly, however, researchers are taking a closer look at the bigger picture, examining something they call “absence culture”. Workplace absence culture refers to the absence-related beliefs, values and behavioural patterns of groups within an organisation (...