Human Resource Management: Workshop Activities and Case Studies

This document contains a series of workshop activities and case studies designed to enhance understanding of key concepts in Human Resource Management. The workshops cover topics such as reward management and motivation, international HRM with a focus on expatriates and management overseas, and absence management. Each workshop includes exercises, questions, and discussions to stimulate critical thinking and practical application of HR principles.

Human Resource Management
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Table of Contents
Human Resource Management......................................................................................................1
Workshop 1 - Reward Management and Motivation at work.........................................................4
Exercise 1.........................................................................................................................................4
Exercise 2.........................................................................................................................................7
Exercise 3.........................................................................................................................................9
Exercise 4.......................................................................................................................................11
Workshop 2: International HRM-Expatriates and Management Overseas...................................13
Questions:..................................................................................................................................13
1.................................................................................................................................................13
2.................................................................................................................................................13
3.................................................................................................................................................14
4.................................................................................................................................................15
5.................................................................................................................................................16
6.................................................................................................................................................16
7.................................................................................................................................................17
Workshop 3: Absence Management..............................................................................................18
Activity 1...................................................................................................................................18
What are the advantages and disadvantages of paying employees whilst they are absent from
work?.........................................................................................................................................18
Activity 2...................................................................................................................................19
Should there be limits to ‘sickness pay’ and if so what should they be? Is this fair to
employees with a genuine illness?.............................................................................................19
Activity 3...................................................................................................................................20
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What factors help explain the differences in average absence levels between (a) the private
sector (mean = 5.2 days in 2016) and public sector (mean = 8.5 days in 2016)?......................20
The overall average in the public sector has always been higher than the overall average in the
private sector – why do you think this is?.................................................................................20
Activity 4...................................................................................................................................21
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods for reducing absence levels
below?........................................................................................................................................21
(a) Giving warnings for absence leading to eventual dismissal where this exceeds a certain
number of instances in a set period............................................................................................21
(b) Giving employees with excellent attendance over a 6 month or 12 month period a small
financial incentive (ie £50)........................................................................................................22
(c) Finding out what can be done to improve the physical or emotional working environment
so it is a more pleasant place to work........................................................................................22
(d) Denying promotion or performance related pay to employees with high absence levels....22
(e) Developing and implementing a strong health and well-being policy at work to help
employees with health and fitness issues...................................................................................23
Reference List................................................................................................................................24
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Workshop 1 - Reward Management and Motivation at work
Exercise 1
Complete the questionnaire placed on NILE entitled 'What Rewards do you most Value?’ for 3
different people: Yourself, an older person (such as one of your parents) and a close personal
friend. Tick what you think are the 3 most important rewards for each person and then spend a
little time reflecting on your answers and what they can mean for organisations wanting to
ensure their employees are rewarded.
Once you have completed this task consider the following –
Should organisations try to find out what employees most value from work? Should they try to
partly plan their reward strategies around this or is that too difficult to do?
Should they continue to treat everyone the same when it comes to non-financial rewards or
should managers find out what rewards employees prefer and use this to motivate them more?
We will be discussing these and other issues in our first Workshop.
Activity - What Rewards do you most Value?
Below is a list of what we can term ‘rewards’
Task 1. In column 1 number the 3 that are most important to you in order of priority. Compare your
answers with a colleague.
Task 2. Find out or estimate what the top 3 rewards are for 2 other people you know. If possible try to
select 2 people in a different age bracket to yourself such as a parent or older relative. Use columns 2
and 3 for this.
Type of reward 1 2 3
1. High wages or salary   
2. The chance of promotion 
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3. Career development prospects  
4. Challenging work
5. Status( people ‘look up to you’)
6. Social relationships with work friends
7. Achieving excellent results consistently
8. The power to control resources and people
9. Good opportunities to learn   
10. Having varied and interesting work
11. Pride at being a member of the organisation
12. Getting as much free time as possible
13. Having an easy job in a low pressure environment
14. The satisfaction of producing high quality work
15. Helping those less fortunate than you in your work
16. Receiving verbal recognition and praise for work
completed
In this above questionnaire of NILE the three people’s view including myself, an older person
and a close personal about the views regarding values for rewards. I myself believe in high
wages or salary also the old person and my close personal believes the same. I believe in chance
of promotion is a good reward, whereas the old persona and my friend believe in career
development prospects should be reward. Me and my all two other known people like to have
good and fair chance of opportunities to learn in the organisation and it can be considered as a
good reward. If the employees are rewarded then it will motivate them and it will be beneficial
for the company.
Ans1. Every employee is an asset for the organisation. It is the duty of the organisation to find
out the employee values (Shields et al., 2015). The values of the employee of an organisation can
be recognised and increased by the following ways:
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 Good communication can help to provide values to the employee by making them clear about the
goal and objective of the organisation
 Providing opportunities by means of promotion
 Value can be increased by means of learning opportunities
 Value of the employee can be increased by means of rewards, incentives and appreciation
(Ismail et al., 2016)
 It is also necessary to empower the employee by seeking for suggestion, when required as it
motivates the employee
Ans2. Reward is the best way to get the employee motivated in the organisation and there should
be proper strategies in the organisation for rewards and incentives. There should be rewards in
accordance to market competition. The reward strategies are discussed below:
 There should be incentive based on performance. It can be achieved by motivating the employee
towards their goals, which will forward then to achieve the incentive. It includes yearly bonus,
quarterly incentive plan, incentive based on monthly performance. This will help to boost the
mind and energy of the employee.
 Recognition of employee is very important to making the strategies of rewards. Employee
recognition meets the psychological requirements of the employees, such as employees of the
month or the year
Ans3. There are two types of reward that the organisation should follow to provide incentives
and rewards to the employee of the organisation for motivation. The rewards are stated below:
Financial reward: Financial rewards are provided to the employees to measure the
performance of the employee with the help of money (Stikeleather 2016). This involves profit
sharing for suggesting plans, bonuses, cash reward. It may also include other type of monetary
awards it may be quarterly, yearly etc.
Non financial rewards: It can be provided with awards without money by giving opportunities.
It can be flexible working atmosphere, training and learning (Malik et al., 2015). It can be
provided by offering leadership to certain project or task, giving sudden party to the employees,
giving recognition to the employee by appreciation and by giving awards.
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Exercise 2
Draw up a list of questions that a team of managers in an organization would need to
carefully consider before deciding whether or not to introduce individual performance
related pay. An example could be ‘How hard or easy will it be to measure performance in
each job role?’
1. What are the extent that can influence the attitudes and behaviour through the way of design
rewards? For example if the behaviour of a person is good in the organisation the person can be
rewarded as it impacts the overall growth of the organisation.
2. What types of pay and non pay rewards will work best in achieving high performance and / or
other business goals? For example a person is not eligible for monetary award rather there is
requirement of appreciation or recognition so the individual has to be awarded by taking the case
in consideration.
3. How will the way of rewarding the employees affect recruitment, motivation, retention and
our costs? For example if a employee is rewarded by means of performance as all the parameters
are met, whereas on the other hand one employee has not received any incentive. Then the
employee will not be motivated and would not work.
4. What are the ways through which the managers and the supervisors to motivate the
employees? For example if the employees are not motivated towards their work they will not be
able to achieve the goals and thus it will not be beneficial for the organisation. There should be
motivation and inspiration to the employees.
5. What are the eligibility criteria for incentives and rewards in the organization? It is important
to be clarified both to the managers and to the employees so that there is no confusion and
conflict after someone receives and someone does not receive the rewards.
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6. What is the profit margin of the organization if the reward is being provided to the employee
of the organisation?
7. What kind of rewards is being provided to the employee?
8. What will be the reward payout and its frequency? Whether it can be monthly, quarterly, half
yearly and yearly?
9. Is it necessary to pay to the experienced and long term associates of the employee? It will
create a good image of the employer and the organization?
10. What are the performance parameters for individual employee in the organisation?
11. How the performances of individual employee of an organisation are measured?
12. What are the goals and the objectives that need to be clarified to the employee of the
organisation to provide rewards to the employee?
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Exercise 3
List 5 ways of measuring performance for each job below. These would be the basis of
Individual Performance Related pay:
- University Lecturer
- A sales representative who has to find and visit existing customers and potential new
customers within a medium sized geographical area
- A Restaurant Manager
University Lecturer: Performance plays a vital role in any sector in case of University Lecturer
effective way of teaching is necessary to make the students understand (Morrow et al., 2015) .
The basis component for measuring the performance of the lecturer is stated below:
 Expert in the content, it means the lecturer should have knowledge and provide correct
information to the student
 The skill of the instruction is designed in a very unique way
 The lecture should deliver the skills with all the instruction
 The lecturer should have managerial skill of the course provided
 The lecturer should be good communication and relation to the students
It involves assessment of the performance and all the information should be gathered from the
above five elements. It might include the students’ understanding, course and assessment
procedure, data collection from the peers, information from the departmental head, feedback
received from the students.
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Sales Representative: The 5 ways through, which the job of sales representative can be
measured, are stated below:
 Effectiveness of the call: It is necessary for the representative to garb the opportunity. If the sales
person is receiving any call for sales should take the opportunity
 Grip: It is very difficult to know that how many requirements are there for meetings. It is
necessary to hold or grip the moment and to utilise the situation (Katsikeas et al., 2016)
 Velocity: It is necessary in terms of measuring performance of the sales representative. It helps
in improving the business
 Quality: One of the problems of the sales representative is that overlooking the qualifying areas.
 Win rate change: It is necessary to measure win rate. To measure the change in the win rates the
progress can be found. The best metrics are the quality of data.
Restaurant manager: The performance of the manager of the restaurant can be measured by
the following 5 ways:
 It is necessary to check the number of tables that the restaurant covered and it can be performed
by monitoring the activities of the staff
 It is also necessary to see that the training data of the employee, who are serving alcohol and the
employee have to be up-to-date about it as serving alcohol is under jurisdiction rule. It requires
certification for those employee and the for the restaurant (Kim et al., 2016)
 Customer survey plays a vital role in measuring the performance of the restaurant manager. It
also include the quality of food, drinks behaviour of the staffs, environment of the restaurant
 Calculation the turnover of the restaurant. It has been observed that a good manager always
reduces the turnover of the restaurant. The manger strength the relationship with the employee
 By looking at the laws for food services and it is necessary to compare with the food and health
safety quality of the restaurant. The state certifies the quality of the food and its safety.
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Exercise 4
Happy Travel is a Travel company that survives and prospers by finding and selling holiday
packages to customers by face to face, online and telephone contact. They have city centre branches
in 10 different locations throughout the UK. Most branches employ 5 full time and part time members
of staff whose main role is to discuss with customers different holiday packages and prices and try to
make bookings. The company is not doing as well as it used to and sales are down by 15% in the past
year. Staff turnover is high with over half the staff in most branches leaving and having to be replaced
each year. The company has a Team Performance Related Pay system based on the sales value
achieved by each branch each month. Staff can earn a bonus each month based on what the total sales
value of the whole branch is. This is up to an extra 25% of the monthly salary. The monthly salary
itself is about average for the industry and type of job. The Board believe their bonus scheme is quite
generous but are aware that they do not offer any other financial or non financial incentives for staff
and do not have a lot of funds to do so mainly because of the fall in sales.
Considering the type of jobs, industry and circumstances mentioned above (ie the context):
(a) What other rewards or incentives - financial and non financial - could the next Board meeting
consider and discuss?
(b) What are the pro's and con's of each of these rewards and incentives?
(c) How could they redesign the current financial bonus system to try and increase its motivational
value?
(d) Look up the meaning of the term ' Cafeteria Benefits'. If Happy Travel had such a scheme suggest
6 different 'benefits' that could be offered.
(a) In this context, the organisation of Happy Travel has decided to provide one financial and one
non-financial reward or incentives to the employee for motivation and inspiration. Gift voucher to
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the employee can be the financial reward and appreciation or recognition can be the non-financial
reward.
Gift voucher motivates the employee of the organisation and also boost the energy of the employee
and thus help in reduction of employee retention. Appreciation and recognition by means of employee
of the year highlight the name of the employee and gives exposure.
(b) Pro’s of gift voucher:
Gift voucher can be redeemed everywhere, and it can be utilized to buy the desired product given as a
reward from the organisation (Bradler et al., 2016). It is hassle free voucher, where there is no need of
exchange.
Con’s of gift voucher:
There is expiry date for the gift voucher and it has to be redeemed within the specified date. It very
easy to get the voucher lost anywhere.
(c) The current financial bonus system of Happy Travel can be redesigned by means of providing
extra to the best performer. It can be divided in such a way that each of the employees is benefitted
without much loss of the organisation. The bonus scheme has to be divided into three parts NI, MET,
MI. In the first category the of NI if the person fails to qualify in any one parameters like target
meeting, over time, sales and attendance then there will be bonus of 10% on salary. If the any
individual meets any two parameters as mentioned above then receives 15% bonus on salary. If any
person qualifies in any three parameters then receives 25% of bonus on salary. In this way the
company can motivate the employee and it will create a sense of competition among.
(d) Cafeteria Benefits: It is benefit plan to the employee of an organisation receives money from the
manager or the employee to acquire specific of some plans. It also helps the employee to get the
benefits such as health insurance. It allows the employee to hold their salary for pre-tax (Ambrus and
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Kaufman 2014). This benefit is totally free from the taxes of state. If the company Happy Travels
applies this scheme can offer the above mention benefits to the employees.
Workshop 2: International HRM-Expatriates and Management Overseas
Questions:
1. The term expatriate defines the process of sending employees to other country for a short
period. There are both advantages and disadvantages of employee expatriates to fulfil the
overseas vacancies.
Advantages: The main advantage of an organization of hiring expats is it maintains quality over
quantity. When an international company opens a new office in other country, they prefer to hire
employees from the home country because the employees of home country are aware about the
policies and styles of the company. It is very difficult for the company to hire new employees
from host country because they are totally unaware about the working styles of the company.
Besides, in order to expand the business in the host country, the company needs to hire hard-
working individuals from the host country. Sometimes, the host country lacks to appoint eligible
candidates from host country then they need to hire experts from their own country. Expatriate
helps the company to increase skills of employees because skills of different employees are
mixed and they work together to achieve business goal (Abrashi and Baum, 2017). On the other
hand, the company saves its labour cost by hiring employees from host country because foreign
labour is cheaper than the local. If there is a huge job vacancy then the company targets to hire
extra employees from home country or third country. Therefore, expatriate helps the organization
to fulfil the needs of skilled employees (Baraldi et al., 2017).
Disadvantages: Cultural diversity is a main issue of hiring employees from foreign countries.
When different cultural people work together, they face understanding problem with each other.
Language is the main barrier that employees face during working in other country. Sometimes,
they are neglected by the local employees in the workplace. The employees face various
problems such as visa issues, travel expense to relocate in another country for job purpose.
Employees are departed from their families, when they are relocated in a new country for work
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purpose (Barsky, 2017). This separation creates dedication issue for employees because they
miss their family in the foreign country.
2. In order to expand the business globally every organization takes three main approaches that
ethnocentric, polycentric and geocentric. Firstly, the company prefers to adopt culture and
systems of home country. The company performs HRM strategies of the Home country. On the
other hand, managers are appointed from the Host country because they are more connected with
the local customers. The employees of Home Country and Host country are interlinked to
achieve business goal successfully and effectively (Cortez et al., 2017). On the other hand, the
international firm choose a regional marketing policy to get success in host country. This policy
is considered as Regiocentric.
The host country plays a vital role to change the attitudes of the employees of home country.
When, an employee is relocated in another country, he/she faces some problems regarding foods
or culture. Sometimes, it is seen that the individual employee cannot accept the lifestyle of host
country. The employee cannot accept their cultures due to various differences. The employee
should follow the activities to match up with the local people. Sometimes, the employees, who
are shifted in a new country, are affected by local people and their lifestyles. The employees face
discrimination in host country and this brings depression for them. The employees of ethnic
minority groups are harassed by the local employees in the workplace.
3. In order to get better outcome, the multinational organization hires employees from different
countries. Firstly, when an organization starts its business in other country, the company hires
experienced and skilled employees from home country because the experienced employees help
the organization to start business successfully. As, the internal employees are aware about the
operation of the company therefore, they are more preferable than employees of host country. On
the other hand, staffing mix is necessary for the company to set up business successfully in the
host country. The employees of home country are aware about the strategies and business
policies of the company; alternatively, the employees of host country are conscious about the
local target audience (Dickmann, 2017). Therefore, the multinational company hires employees
both from home country and host country for managing the business successfully. Sometimes,
the multinational company hires employees from third country to increase workforce. Mix of
staffing is helpful because it provides vast knowledge about the works. Different ideas and
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experiences of different employees are interlinked in workplace and it helps to achieve success
easily and effectively.
The advantage of staffs mixing is that it helps the organization to get better production and
solution. The company is able to mix new and innovative ideas and strategies from employees
home and host countries. Thus, the company chooses better strategies among all these to get
more profit. Employees from different countries can bring different innovative ideas, which can
help the organization to increase its market share in the host country. On the other hand, the
disadvantage of staff mixing is that it creates various cultural issues in workplace. Employees
face language barrier to interact with each other. Sometimes, they are not agreed about their
opinions, so that conflict is created among them. The employees come from different cultures, so
that conflict is happened among them about own cultures. This cultural conflict creates negative
environment in the workplace (Rickley and Karim, 2018).
The company follows various qualities to hire employees for the office of host country. The
employees will be smart and elegant. On the other hand, he will be a quick learner, so that he can
acquire the workplace cultures of the host country. The employees should have the ability to
adopt workplace cultures as soon as possible. The company always focuses on the ability rather
than nationality to recruit employees for the business. They prefer ability to nationality during
selection procedure.
4. The organization selects employees to send host country on basis of selection criteria. The
company chooses experienced candidates to relocate. Actually, the organization selects old
employees to send office of host country. Overseas assignment is suitable for the carer oriented
employees. The employee should have effective communication skill to fit with the new
environment of the host country. Interaction is essential to conduct any work therefore, the
organization choose such employees, who are aware about languages of different countries. The
company always selects a quick learner, who can easily adopt the work styles of new country.
Besides, the company gives emphasis on the particular skills and knowledge, which are more
applicable for that particular project (Giousmpasoglou . and Marinakou, 2017). On the other
hand, the organization also selects some local employees for the work. In order to communicate
with target audience, the company should recruit local people as managers. The company prefers
local people as HR manager because they are able to understand the local workplace culture
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better than the managers of home country. Sometimes, managers are provided essential training
to provide knowledge about local culture. The company also gives emphasis on the ability to
recruit new employees for them. In this case, they prefer local eligible candidates as employees.
5. It is logical to involve partner during relocation in a new country for carer growth. It is no
doubt an ethical and valid issue to involve partners with employees. The employee gets more
motivation and energy if his partner is attached with him. Separation from family is pathetic for
the employees and they lack motivation to work in the new country. There are both advantages
and disadvantages to involve partner with applicant. If a partner is involved with the employee,
he feels relax in the new country. This relaxation helps him to work effectively and successfully.
The employee does not take any responsibility about the homely duties because of presence of
his partner (Przytuła, 2017). When, the employee goes to work in host country with partner, he
gest mental satisfaction that provides him energy. Therefore, he can work in the office freely
because he can give his total focus on the official works. Some companies provide benefits of
taking partners with employees. The employee also faces some problems with his partner in a
new country. Firstly, he suffers to find a suitable accommodation for them because he has extra
responsibility. Sometimes, the employee cannot concentrate in his work due to extra headache of
his partner. According to some companies, partners create problems and difficulties for
employees (Rowlands and Iles, 2017).
6. Cultural assimilators are regarded as culture training programs, which helps the company to
provide specific knowledge about different cultures before sending them other countries for work
purpose. The procedure is started through interviews with employees to know who has
experience about the particular culture (Zhang et al., 2017). After conducting interviews, the
company selects the right one to send the host country for work. The company arranges a
training program to inform culture and social behaviour of the particular country. The HRM
department organizes video session to provide knowledge of workplace culture of the particular
country. When, an organization selects an employee to relocate other country for business
dealing, it is necessary to provide appropriate knowledge about workplace culture of the
particular country.
Workplace scenario: A U.S based company sends one of its employees to deal about a new
project with a company of Venezuela. The employee is totally unaware about the workplace
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culture of Venezuela. Therefore, he starts his presentation with an abrupt beginning. The
Venezuelan culture is that they speak very politely and listen attentively. The employee makes
jokes during presentation and this is not matched with Venezuelan culture. The employee speaks
rapidly with the employees of the Venezuelan company. Therefore, the US based firm is failed to
deal with the company due to cultural differences.
A) What was the main problem to connect with the new company?
The main problem is that the representative of US based firm cannot communicate effectively
with the managers of Venezuelan firm. He does not present his statement politely before them.
The managers of Venezuelan firm cannot understand his statement clearly due to cultural
difference.
B) How the company can solve the problem?
The company should conduct a proper survey to choose right employee for sending in different
country for business purpose.
C) Why the Venezuelan company cancels the deal?
The firm was not happy with the approach of the representative of US firm. They do not like his
style of presentation, so that they do not want to conduct further business with them.
7. According to given scenario, the company should take several approaches to get success from
expatriates. When a company sends his employees in the abroad for a project development, the
company should follow some strategies to select employees. Firstly, the company provides
proper training to give knowledge about different workplace cultures. The company conducts a
survey to find who has knowledge about the culture of particular country. On the other hand, the
employees are given examples of previous cases to get success in the new country. The company
should send only experienced and able employees in the abroad to reduce problems.
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Workshop 3: Absence Management
Activity 1
What are the advantages and disadvantages of paying employees whilst they are absent
from work?
The term which is used to refer when employees are absent from work place is known as
absenteeism. Some reasons for absenteeism are legitimate while other are out of context and
unclear. The legitimate issues can be related to family or personal issues. While the unclear
issues can attending family functions and meeting employees. Absenteeism is can be also traced
to other factors such as an unfriendly workplace environment or co-workers who are not co-
operative at the work place. When the rate of absenteeism increases among the employees t
hampers the productivity, which directly have an adverse effect on the operations of the business
organization (Sekaran and Bougie, 2016). Employees have the right to take an off from the work
place to create a balance between their professional life and personal life. Every organization in
business needs a software to keep a track of holidays or day-offs taken by the employee. In a
particular year, there are some leaves, which are granted from the organization beforehand. Next,
there are public holidays, which are followed in every organization (Pausch et al., 2015). Some
companies adapt to the policies of providing paid holidays or leaves to the employees. There are
some advantages and disadvantages of having paid leaves in an organization.
The advantages of having paid holidays are as follow:
 Employees can chose the day in which he or she wants to remain absent from according to their
choice
 The employers can control absenteeism which is unscheduled in nature
 Flexibility provided by the organization is valued by the employees.
 Employees can decide at their own discretion when to take a leave
 Many a times paid leaves attracts those employees who are hard to recruit in the staffing process
 The employees feel empowered that they can make their own decisions, which are aligned to
their personal needs.
The disadvantages of having paid leaves in an organization are as follow:
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 Employees might misuse the fact that the organization provides paid holidays.
 Employees look at paid leaves as benefits, which can be exploited every now and then.
 Paid leaves make employees inefficient. Being regularly absent from work hampers the
productivity of the employees
Paid leaves can be effectively managed in an organization in some ways. The human resource
management of the organization should make sure that the concept of paid leaves fits into the
culture of the company. A company or business organization, which has high degree of
flexibility in its operations, the concept of paid leaves, works best (Cavalcanti et al., 2015). The
guidelines for taking a paid leave should be very clearly established. The employees in the
organization should be managed well rather than the paid leaves.
Activity 2
Should there be limits to ‘sickness pay’ and if so what should they be? Is this fair to
employees with a genuine illness?
Sickness pay can be defined as the leave that is taken due to personal health issues. The pay that
is gathered by the employee to due to his personal health issues are known as sickness pay. There
are two types of sickness pay namely Statutory Sickness Pay (SSP) and Company Sickness Pay
(CSP). The employees in the organizations are provided with SSP if they meet the requirement
of the SSP. CSP is often considered as a voluntary benefit, which is provided to some of the
employees by the employers (Hr.per.gov.ie, 2018).. One can legally get SSP if he or she is under
some company contract. However, the issues of illness has to be genuine. People who earn more
than 112 pounds a week are eligible to get SSP. SSP are not some extra money. When an
employee is under SSP, the sick leave pays are exactly the amount the employees get for a
normal working day. Sickness pay is granted for some special issue related to bereavement or
family care, adoption purpose, and personal medical needs. The amount of sick leaves that can
be accumulated has no limits. In a year, an employee working in UK can take sick leaves up to
240 hours. A person can get sick any moment. It is not possible for an employee to inform the
organization beforehand. When a employee is going to be operated then he or she can inform the
company about availing the benefits of the sick leaves. When a employee is asking for sickness
pay he or she needs to produce medical records to the organization. Without proper medical
records, sickness pay should not be granted. Many employees take advantage of the sickness and
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make money out of it. Reasons like headache, stomach issues should be considered as serious
sickness problems. People who are absent from the organization for more than three days should
produce records to medical treatment they have undergone. Without the documents, sickness pay
should not be granted (Yousef, 2017). Pregnancy and childbirth birth does not come under
sickness pay. They should be considered as maternity leave. Sickness pay should be done for
communicable diseases as well. Employees affected with communicable disease coming to
office might affect the health of the c-employers. Sickness pay is also granted to people who has
come kind of disability. Under the Executive Order 5396, July 17, 1930, a disabled employee is
entitled to sick leaves with pay. The days which he or she are absent, they have use the days for
treatment, only then they would be eligible for sickness pay. These limitations should be present
in the policies related to sickness pay. This would ensure that employees would not misuse the
‘sickness pay’ concept in the human resource policies (Clasen, 2017).
Activity 3
What factors help explain the differences in average absence levels between (a) the private
sector (mean = 5.2 days in 2016) and public sector (mean = 8.5 days in 2016)?
The overall average in the public sector has always been higher than the overall average in
the private sector – why do you think this is?
The absence level in the public sector and the private sector are different. This is due to various
reasons that prevail in both types of organizations. There are many surveys, which are done by
Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) shows that the absence rate in
public sector is 4.3 percent while that in the private sector is 2.8 per cent (Public/private sector
sickness absence: the impossible divide. 2018). The absence percentage in public sector has
always remained high due to some factors. The factors are given down below:
 Different size of the organization, workforce mix and structure of the job roles: the
organizations in the public sector are much larger than public sectors. There are higher
percentage of women, older workers and manual workers in the workforce of the organization.
All the above-mentioned factors add to the percentage of absence levels in the organizations in
the public sector.
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 Organizational Culture: According to the reports drawn out by CIPD, it can say that the private
sector manages absence due to sickness in a much better way than public sector. Here the
punitive measures require special attention. Companies refer to the absence policies with the
disciplinary measures. The employees who take regular leaves for being sick are often dismissed
from the organizations. In the selection criterion pertaining to redundancy, absence records are
used.
The demographics and organizational size of a public sector possess various challenges against
sickness absence in public sector. The private sectors are often successful in overcoming the
obstacles related to absence due to sickness (O'connor 2017). In public sectors, there is a age
limit to work. However, in the private sectors there is no predefined age limit to work in an
organization. People who are in there late fifties and sixties often tend to get sicker than the
young people do. This is the reason for which, the level of sickness absence is much more in the
private sector. The other reason why sickness absence in private sector is higher due to reason of
unlimited work pressure and wee working hours. In public sector, the work hours are laid down
according to that of the government rules and regulations. There are fixed work timings and the
work pressure is within human limits. However, in a organization of the private sector the
working hours are long and inhuman. The work pressure is always higher. The policies of human
resource are good in private companies but the management is unable to implement it. The
policies of human resource are well implemented in the public sector. All these reasons are
responsible for higher sickness percentage in private sector when compared to public sector
(Atkinson and Stiglitz 2015).
Activity 4
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods for reducing absence levels
below?
(a) Giving warnings for absence leading to eventual dismissal where this exceeds a certain
number of instances in a set period
Sickness pay are available for the employees for only genuine reasons. Many employees use
sickness pay as a tool not to work but get the pay. Some tools are used to reduce absenteeism in
an organization. Every tool has some kind of strength and weakness. In some organizations,
21

warnings are given to employees who take innumerable sick leaves. This has some pros and con.
When there is a fear of dismissal, employees have fear in their mind and they tend to take sick
leaves only when required. The fear of dismissal often increases job insecurity among the
employees. This decreases the productivity of the employees (O'Sullivan et al., 2016).
(b) Giving employees with excellent attendance over a 6 month or 12 month period a small
financial incentive (ie £50)
The employees who have not a single leave in a period of six months or a year should be given
some financial incentives. Offering good financial incentives to the employees motivates them
and they tend to work more efficiently. In most cases, providing incentives has some adverse
effects too. In most of the situation, the employees are not happy with the financial incentive
they are provided with. The employees think they are not getting the right worth of their work.
As a result, the productivity of the employees gets adversely affected.
(c) Finding out what can be done to improve the physical or emotional working
environment so it is a more pleasant place to work
When a company has favourable physical or emotional working environment, the employees are
more engaged towards their work. To improve the working environment, the human resource
management should devise employee friendly policies. Employee friendly policies increase the
productivity of the workers. However, this has some negative implications too. A working
environment, which is too flexible, makes the employees less serious about their work as there is
no fear of dismissal.
(d) Denying promotion or performance related pay to employees with high absence levels
Employees who remain absent regularly due to sickness related issues are often denied
promotion in the organization. The positive impact of this method is, the employees get
motivated to work more to seek promotion (Sekaran and Bougie, 2016). The negative aspect of
this tool is, when employees are not granted with promotion they lose confidence in the
management of the company and this tends to hamper their productivity.
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(e) Developing and implementing a strong health and well-being policy at work to help
employees with health and fitness issues
When a workplace or organization has a strong well-being and health policy, it helps employees
with health and fitness issues. The employees gain confidence among the management of the
company. Employees remain fit in such a scenario. Sometimes these policies are not
implemented in a correct order. This decreases the productivity of the employees.
23

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