Going 'absent', then just 'going'? A case study examination of absence and quitting

This paper makes use of personnel data to examine absence, variously defined, and quitting in a call centre. It seeks to examine the hypothesis that absence and quitting are related, both being indicative of a lack of commitment on the part of the worker but offering different adjustment strategies to this problem. In the case study, absence is seen to be positively correlated with tenure, occupation and type of employment contract and negatively correlated with gender and age. The impact of the individual's operations manager is not without significance. For example the inclusion of this set of variables reduces absence, however defined, for certain occupational groups and grades. Quitting is seen to be negatively correlated with age, tenure and type of employment contract. There is a positive correlation between quitting and an individual's absence record prior to making the decision to leave, although the results are not statistically significant and the quantitative effects of the relationships are negligible