Understanding construction workforce absenteeism in industrial construction

Abstract

This paper intends to establish a foundation that will permit an in-depth understanding of absenteeism in large scale industrial construction. This type of construction currently suffers greatly from the negative impacts (e.g., productivity loss; cost and schedule overruns) of absenteeism. Taking into account the complexity of large-scale industrial construction (e.g., the long operational periods and the tremendous variety of trades and positions involved), a more systematic and com prehensive understanding of absenteeism is necessary. In an effort to address this issue, we developed a survey and an ab senteeism tracking tool, both of which can be used in other industrial projects. To test their validity, a pilot project was established in an industrial multi-contractor enterprise in Alberta. The results of this project reveal the great potential of both the survey and tracking tool — it is evident that they can be applied to diverse industrial projects and enable an in depth understanding of absenteeism. Further, the results have led to several findings (e.g., a significant amount of absences are not reported to supervisors in advance; the need to educate apprentices to avoid absences; and the fact that employees believe that fellow employees are more likely to be absent than themselves). The effects of different absence reduction and compensation policies currently practiced in industrial construction are also discussed in this paper