Statistics

Statistics

Introduction

The company has 32 employees and the management is concerned that there has arose an absenteeism problem.  This is a very serious problem because if it is left to persist, it could lead to losses to the company as salaries and wages are paid to employees who do not go to work. Therefore, there was need to determine whether the existing policies were gave the employees more freedom than they deserve, with regard to time off their work. This would finally help[ the management team to determine whether their absenteeism policies were weak, or either of the two provisions for absenteeism was being misused.

Methodology

The consultant would conduct the project in two phases.  Phase one would involve interviewing all managers and employees to determine their sex and how they spend their money. It would also determine the marital status of the employees as well as their satisfaction with the company policies with regard to ease of absenteeism. The second phase involved collecting data from company employment records to determine the number of hours each employee was absent due to either sickness or to go out for vacation.

The first phase would be categorized as quantitative. This is because all the results were measurable numerically. Even in cases where the interpretations would be made using phrases such as greater than or more than, it would mean the numbers were oriented to a certain direction. When data is collected and recorded in numerical forms, the type of research is quantitative.

The second phase was also to be quantitative. At this stage, the researcher would be determining the number of hours that every employee spends away from work, during working hours, due to sickness or for vacation. The information was obtained and recorded in numeric forms, thus can only be termed as quantitative research.

After all the findings are made, MS Excel would be used to make the analysis of the mean and standard deviation for the hours that employees have been absent from work. These will be compared to the number of hours that the company policy allows for absenteeism.

Findings

During Phase One, it was determined that 50% of the employees were PhDs involved in new product research, the other 50% were laborers involved in distributing the product lines to customers.  All of the PhDs were male, and all of the laborers were female.  For all of the females, the employee’s income was a secondary income for the family; all were married and the majority had children.  For the PhDs, the employee’s income was the family’s primary income; the majority was married with children.  When asked, the managers noted that none of the employees ever violated the company’s absenteeism or tardiness policies.   The majority of the employees expressed satisfaction with the company’s attendance policies.  Several employees (all laborers) noted that the policy afforded them a good deal of flexibility to handle family matters as needed. The company awarded 20 days (160 hours) per year of vacation time that could accrue to a total of 40 days; they also provided 20 days (160 hours) of sick leave that could accrue to 180 days at which time long term disability took over paying the person’s salary.  Sick leave and vacation could be taken on an hourly basis with manager approval.

Table 1: The data collected showing the gender, class and time taken from work for every employee.

The mean for vacation time is 140 hours, while that of sick leave is 620.2813. The table below is a MS excel output.

Table 2: The statistical analysis of the number of hours that people in the company use are absent from work due to vacation and sicknesses.

The standard deviation for the amount vacation is 107.759 while that for sick leave is 563.5204 as shown in the MS excel output table above.

To determine whether there was a significant difference in the amount of work that the two groups take time off work due to vacation and sick leave, analysis of variance is the best test. This is because the number of counts are greater than 30, and follow a normal distribution.

Conclusions

The company has allowed for 160 hours for vocational leave to each employee every year. The employees have utilized an average of 107.759 hours, leaving a difference of about 52.341 hours. On the other hand, the company has only allowed for 160 hours for their sick leaves per year. However, the employees use this allowance and have had 563.5204 hours, which makes an excess of 403.5204 hours. This shows that employees do not use their vocational leaves, but mainly use sick leave. They have not exhausted their vocational hours leave, but have surpassed their sick leave by a large margin.

Recommendations

The main problem that is facing the company with regard to absenteeism is sick leave. Therefore, they should address the reasons why this is happening to the employees. The working conditions should be examined to determine whether they have any relationship with the cases of absenteeism due to sickness.

Secondly, the company could come up with more strict measures with regard to sickness. Though this could hamper productivity, and could be viewed as a forceful way of keeping employees at work, the company should keep the minimum requirements for a person to be termed as sick and unable to carry out their duty. Therefore, by employing more strict measures to deal with the issue of absenteeism due to sicknesses, they would not be violating the rights of employees.

The company should consider starting up a chemist within the premises, where employees would take their medication in case they are diagnosed with a certain ailment. They would not be required to go to other health institutions to get these services. However, the costs involved in running the facility should be less than those that are incurred when employees absentee from work in search for medical attention. 

Finally, the company should carry out more research to determine if there is any significant relationship between the sex of employees and the rate of absenteeism. If there is a significant difference, the gender that is more vulnerable to sickness is reduced in numbers.