Association between Field of Work, Years of Service, and Sickness Absenteeism in Public Administration

Background and Purpose: Statistics of sickness absenteeism in public administration in Slovenia is considerably higher (7.1% in 2018) than the percentage that applies for the whole of Slovenia (4.5% in 2018). The data also shows a similar pattern in the public sector in other countries. According to that, the main purpose of our research is to investigate the connection between fields of work, years of service, and sickness absenteeism in public administration in Slovenia.

Methodology: Research data was collected with the help of an online questionnaire, which was designed for empirical research and consisted of several sets of questions. The collected data was processed using the SPSS statistical program.

Results: The research was conducted in 2015 in public administration institutions, and 3,220 employees from public administration were included in our research sample. The results of the research show that there is a statistically significant connection between sickness absenteeism in public administration and years of service and the field of work of employees in public administration.

Conclusion: The survey helps us to understand the connection between sickness absenteeism and years of service and field of work of employees in public administration. With regard to the results, it would be reasonable to adopt measures focused on groups of employees in public administration (older employees with a greater length of service, employed officials and professional-technical public employees) where sickness absence may be reduced. Sickness absenteeism in these groups of employees could be reduced by providing employees better leadership and conditions for satisfaction in the workplace.