Ill health and distraction at work: Costs and drivers for productivity loss.

Employer-sponsored health insurance is the most widely spread form of medical coverage in the United States. Substantial portion of the premiums' costs is covered by employers, thus contributing to labor costs for organizations. Although worker health and well-being have become increasingly imp...

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Main Authors: Piotr Bialowolski, Eileen McNeely, Tyler J VanderWeele, Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2020-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230562
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spelling doaj-48276b5fd25c484f86152d86be465ccd2021-03-03T21:38:05ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032020-01-01153e023056210.1371/journal.pone.0230562Ill health and distraction at work: Costs and drivers for productivity loss.Piotr BialowolskiEileen McNeelyTyler J VanderWeeleDorota Weziak-BialowolskaEmployer-sponsored health insurance is the most widely spread form of medical coverage in the United States. Substantial portion of the premiums' costs is covered by employers, thus contributing to labor costs for organizations. Although worker health and well-being have become increasingly important for businesses, most of them do not see a direct link between their health and well-being investments and work output and quality of work of their employees. This study aimed to estimate the cost of inefficiencies at work with emphasis on their internal causes, i.e., sick-related absenteeism and distraction at work. With data from 3,258 employees (2,775 office and 483 manufacturing) from a major US manufacturer with revenue of $6 billion, monetary loss in productivity due to sick-related absenteeism and distraction among office and factory floor employees was assessed. The Work Productivity and Activity Impairment scale and the Health-related Lost Productivity Time tool (both already validated) were used to estimate the cost of productivity loss. Survey data on health-related absenteeism and distraction time at work, together with company pay records, were used. A secondary analysis, using survey data collected from 615 Polish apparel factory workers at a major global brand complemented with their payroll records (absenteeism and salary), was conducted to validate the main findings. Results of the primary analysis indicated that annual productivity loss to the organization amounted to approximately $300 m. Distraction contributed to 93.6% of the annual productivity loss of the US manufacturer, while only 6.4% resulted from health-related absenteeism, implying that distraction at work cost this organization almost 15 times more than health related absenteeism, reducing the overall return on sales by over 6 pp. The secondary analysis corroborated the dominance of distraction induced productivity costs over the cost of health-related absenteeism. Evidence from the regression analysis conducted on cross-sectional data indicated that regardless of the type of work, work engagement and auditory privacy were evidently highly bound with productivity loss. For manufacturing workers, job security was also negatively correlated with productivity loss, while for office employees, better social relationships and lack of work-family conflict were positively associated with productivity. Despite being based on two case studies, our results are informative of the magnitude of distraction and health related productivity costs. They also show that workers with deficiencies in their well-being at work present a substantial opportunity for growth to companies in terms of reduced efficiency.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230562
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Piotr Bialowolski
Eileen McNeely
Tyler J VanderWeele
Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska
spellingShingle Piotr Bialowolski
Eileen McNeely
Tyler J VanderWeele
Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska
Ill health and distraction at work: Costs and drivers for productivity loss.
PLoS ONE
author_facet Piotr Bialowolski
Eileen McNeely
Tyler J VanderWeele
Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska
author_sort Piotr Bialowolski
title Ill health and distraction at work: Costs and drivers for productivity loss.
title_short Ill health and distraction at work: Costs and drivers for productivity loss.
title_full Ill health and distraction at work: Costs and drivers for productivity loss.
title_fullStr Ill health and distraction at work: Costs and drivers for productivity loss.
title_full_unstemmed Ill health and distraction at work: Costs and drivers for productivity loss.
title_sort ill health and distraction at work: costs and drivers for productivity loss.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
series PLoS ONE
issn 1932-6203
publishDate 2020-01-01
description Employer-sponsored health insurance is the most widely spread form of medical coverage in the United States. Substantial portion of the premiums' costs is covered by employers, thus contributing to labor costs for organizations. Although worker health and well-being have become increasingly important for businesses, most of them do not see a direct link between their health and well-being investments and work output and quality of work of their employees. This study aimed to estimate the cost of inefficiencies at work with emphasis on their internal causes, i.e., sick-related absenteeism and distraction at work. With data from 3,258 employees (2,775 office and 483 manufacturing) from a major US manufacturer with revenue of $6 billion, monetary loss in productivity due to sick-related absenteeism and distraction among office and factory floor employees was assessed. The Work Productivity and Activity Impairment scale and the Health-related Lost Productivity Time tool (both already validated) were used to estimate the cost of productivity loss. Survey data on health-related absenteeism and distraction time at work, together with company pay records, were used. A secondary analysis, using survey data collected from 615 Polish apparel factory workers at a major global brand complemented with their payroll records (absenteeism and salary), was conducted to validate the main findings. Results of the primary analysis indicated that annual productivity loss to the organization amounted to approximately $300 m. Distraction contributed to 93.6% of the annual productivity loss of the US manufacturer, while only 6.4% resulted from health-related absenteeism, implying that distraction at work cost this organization almost 15 times more than health related absenteeism, reducing the overall return on sales by over 6 pp. The secondary analysis corroborated the dominance of distraction induced productivity costs over the cost of health-related absenteeism. Evidence from the regression analysis conducted on cross-sectional data indicated that regardless of the type of work, work engagement and auditory privacy were evidently highly bound with productivity loss. For manufacturing workers, job security was also negatively correlated with productivity loss, while for office employees, better social relationships and lack of work-family conflict were positively associated with productivity. Despite being based on two case studies, our results are informative of the magnitude of distraction and health related productivity costs. They also show that workers with deficiencies in their well-being at work present a substantial opportunity for growth to companies in terms of reduced efficiency.
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230562
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