Factors affecting absenteeism : a case study in Sri Lankan apparel industry

Abstract

Sri Lankan apparel industry is the primary foreign exchange earner accounting to 40% of the total exports as per Export Development Board (EDB) and 52% of industrial products exports in 2018. According to them, there are apparel manufactures in large, medium and small scale and most of them are small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) which spread throughout the country. Employee absenteeism is one of the typical issues in the apparel sector in Sri Lanka. Maintaining lower employee absenteeism rate is essential factor for continuing growth of any organization and well identified influencing factors help to manage absenteeism properly. The main objective of the research is to find the factors affecting the absenteeism in small scale garment manufacturing plants in Sri Lanka. With the intention of achieving this objective, carefully designed questionnaire was distributed among the population (64 employees) of a small scale garment manufacturing plant which is struggling to minimize absenteeism rate from 7% to 5%. Further, there was a research gap on influencing factors of absenteeism in company level. Correlation analysis techniques used in testing developed hypothesis and research outcomes show physical work place environment, illness/personal matters, working climate, superior commitment, work related stress are positively correlated with the employee absenteeism. In conclusion, these factors increase absenteeism significantly in this factory. In this manner, recommendations were suggested to the top management after finding genuine factors which hid behind the problem.