Multi-Study Spotlight: Participatory Decision-making Processes and Absenteeism

h2. Spotlight on article published in

h2. "+Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health+":http://jech.bmj.com/content/61/11/945.short

_IBI Spotlights call attention to important health and productivity findings from peer-reviewed work by external researchers. Unless otherwise stated, the authors are not affiliated with IBI, nor was the research executed on IBI’s behalf. IBI members are encouraged to obtain the original articles from the copyright holder._

h2. What is the Issue?

Increasing workers participation in workplace decision-making processes to provide job control may improve the psychosocial work environment, and in turn improve health and reduce absenteeism. Findings of these relationships are mixed.

h2. What are the findings/solutions?

* Studies that examined absenteeism as a health outcome tend to find that efforts to increase employee participatory decision-making resulted in fewer absences. However this did not always occur alongside improvements in psychosocial factors such as stress and job overload.
* Giving employees more say in their working conditions could help reduce absenteeism.

h2. Journal Citation

Egan, M., Bambra, C., Thomas, S., Petticrew, M., Whitehead, M., & Thomson, H. (2007). The Psychosocial and Health Effects Of Workplace Reorganisation. 1. A Systematic Review of Organisational-Level Interventions that Aim to Increase Employee Control. _Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health_, 61(11), 945-954.

h2. Objectives

To determine whether systematic evidence exists to support the “demand-control-support” model of workplace health. This model posits that an employee’s health is negatively impacted by high job demands, low job control, and low levels of social support in the workplace. The theory suggests that giving employees more say in their working conditions could help improve outcomes.

h2. Method

Systematic review of 18 studies that examined interventions that provided greater employee participation in workplace decision-making, and which also measured a health outcome. Five of the studies measured absenteeism as a health outcome.

h2. Results

Of the five studies that measured absenteeism as a health outcome, four showed that absenteeism improved when employees participated in workplace decision-making processes. The evidence that these improvements occurred because psychosocial factors also improved is mixed.

h2. Conclusion

Absenteeism could be improved by including employees in some decision-making processes.