Wellness key to abolishing absenteeism

Barbados is said to suffer from a major case of employee absenteeism and one university lecturer believes that addressing the wellness of the employees could put a dent in the growing number of cases of absenteeism.

Speaking during yesterday’s Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association’s Work-Life Balance Workshop, Dr. Dwayne Devonish, Senior Lecturer, Management, Faculty of Social Sciences noted that many persons were of the view that Barbados had an absenteeism culture, however after carrying out research at a few companies, research revealed that most of the cases of absenteeism were legitimate.

He believed that one way to put a dent in the high level of absenteeism, based on research, was a change of policy which, when enacted, allowed employees greater time in their jobs to look after some of their personal needs. He noted that this would be done by allowing employees to legitimately and sensibly control thetime that they left and came into work.

He noted that persons also complained of the fact that Barbados had a customer service problem, but he argued that this was not the case.

“We don’t look at social wellness often enough as a component of wellness,” he said.

“Someone told me the other day that Barbados has a service problem, and I said no it has a wellness problem, because you have a lot of employees who fail to manage their mental health either due to organisational pressures or demands and personal life that they react to customers in ways that customers would say this is a customer service problem.

“I want us to understand that we have to change the conversation and it is not the customer service that is a part of the problem it is really a wellness problem that we have, and as we you will see that wellness cuts into every aspect of life.”

He noted that the same way employers are expected to clean up their air-conditioning units to ensure their employees do not get sick, and persons are encouraged to clean up their diets to avoid getting sick, cleaning up the social environment of a workplace was also paramount.