The complexity of absenteeism and turnover intention: Direct, mediation and moderation effects

Abstract

Absenteeism and turnover in the workplace are complex phenomena that have implications for organisations and individuals alike. This study investigated the relationships of attitudinal factors with absenteeism and turnover intentions at a large healthcare organisation in the Bay of Plenty. A questionnaire completed by 407 employees had several measures such as job involvement, job satisfaction, organisational commitment (affective and continuance commitment), perceived organisational support, perceived supervisor support, work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, team cohesion, regional identification and turnover intention. Absenteeism data were collected from personnel records. The results indicated a probable association of job satisfaction, work-to-family conflict and perceived supervisor support with absenteeism, while turnover intention was associated with all predictors except continuance commitment. Perceived organisational support partially mediated the relationship between perceived supervisor support and turnover intention. No moderator effects were found for job involvement, perceived supervisor support and team cohesion on relationships between work-to-family conflict and affective commitment/job satisfaction and perceived organisational support and affective commitment respectively, however strong main effects were shown for job involvement and team cohesion. The main finding is that organisations must understand how organisational and supervisor support increases job satisfaction and affective commitment and decreases work-to-family conflict, which lowers absenteeism and turnover intention. The detection of high levels of regional identification indicate the need to acknowledge this construct, particularly in relation to turnover intention.