Workplace Absenteeism in the Nigerian Telecommunication Sector: Causes, Consequences and Control

Abstract

In spite of the prevalence of workplace absenteeism within the Nigerian industry, the quantification of the impact that it has on productivity has not been ascertained. Though, appreciable number of studies has been committed to understand why employees excuse themselves from duties, however, these studies have been largely situated within the developed Western communities of Europe and America. Therefore, this study aimed to cover the gap in literature by examining the peculiarities of workplace absenteeism within the Nigerian work and cultural environment. The study empirically examined the policies and strategies that are deployed by telecommunication companies to address the issue of high absenteeism of employees in their workplaces. Adopting the use of a combination of primary and secondary data collection methods of qualitative and quantitative techniques, the study solicited information from 12 in-depth interviews, 4 key informant interviews and 400 questionnaires. It found that the measures and policies put into use by the telecoms companies leans very strongly on the Western style of managing workplace absenteeism. It was suggested that the management of indigenous companies should always consider the peculiarity of the Nigerian environmental, cultural and traditional situations in any measure that they are adopting from foreign countries.

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 9(3), 1-16, 2012