Alcohol consumption and workplace absenteeism: The moderating effect of social support.

Abstract

Although it is commonly assumed that alcohol consumption has a significant impact on employee absenteeism, the nature of the alcohol-absence relationship remains poorly understood. Proposing that alcohol impairment likely serves as a key mechanism linking drinking and work absence, we posit that this relationship is likely governed less by the amount of alcohol consumed, and more by the way it is consumed. Using a prospective study design and a random sample of urban transit workers, our results indicate that the frequency of heavy episodic drinking over the previous month is positively associated with the number of days of absence recorded in the subsequent 12 month period, whereas modal consumption (a metric capturing the typical amount of alcohol consumed in a given period of time) is not. In addition, consistent with both volitional treatments of absenteeism and social exchange theory, perceived co-worker support was found to attenuate, and supervisory support to amplify, the link between the frequency of heavy episodic drinking and absenteeism. KeywordsAbsenteeism; Alcohol Consumption; Peer Support; Supervisor Support Employee absenteeism takes a heavy toll on worker productivity in the United States, costing employers approximately $225.8 billion per year or $1685 per employee per year (Stewart et al., 2003). Although employee drinking is widely assumed to serve as an important antecedent of such employee behavior (General Workplace Impact, 2003), as noted by Frone (2008), "a broader review of more recent studies shows a fair amount of inconsistency regarding this relation" (p. 234). Indeed, with the link between drinking and workplace absenteeism continuing to perplex scholars, a number of absence researchers have come to view the impact of drinking on employee absenteeism as being "more complex" than the impact of other 1 All authors contributed equally and names appear in alphabetical order.Please address all correspondence regarding this article to Peter Bamberger.. Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/journals/apl NIH Public Access (Harrison & Martocchio, 1998;Gmel & Rehm, 2003). Underlying this complexity are two main issues.The first issue concerns the assumed nature of the alcohol-absenteeism relationship, and in particular, the degree to which the mechanism underlying this relationship is governed by the amount of alcohol consumed as opposed to the way it is consumed. To date, nearly all of the studies examining the alcohol-absence relationship have focused on the former, with most based on t...

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