Understanding the factors that can reduce the time individuals spend away from work can lead to more efficient business operations across a wide variety of organizations. Leaders are continually striving to determine what can be done to keep their employees actively engaged and productive through beneficial workplace programs and incentives. Part of ensuring employees is willing to come to work and contribute to a business’ overall goals also means reducing the incidence of sick time off and workplace injury. After all, lost time at work can equate to loss profits.A new study examined the association between the two in order to home in on factors that can make workplaces safer, and thus, more likely to avoid long recovery times following illness or injury. The team investigated whether time off rates and spending following compensable injury can be predicted by exploring an organization’s specific traits. They used a scale called the Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC), which measures whether a business has an overarching environment that prioritizes and fosters worker mental health, to determine whether it is at risk of being burdened with lower profitability.High PSC organizations tend to have a culture where employees feel safe, secure, and valued, leading to higher job satisfaction, reduced stress related to work, and as a result, fewer workplace injuries. By the same token, low PSC environments usually have high employee stress levels, job dissatisfaction, and higher incidence of injuries, all of which contribute to employees spending more time away from the workplace. The team predicted that focusing on PSC can increase employee satisfaction and reduce overall costs, eliminating undue lost profits.

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The study looked at past reports on working conditions from an independent Australian Workplace Barometer (AWB) survey, which included interviews with 1,067 workers. It then compared this data to future workers' compensation claims data from a government safety regulator. By combining both data sets, researchers were able to review compensation data before significant policy changes, focusing on working time lost due to injury or illness of at least one day. This resulted in a review of 100 organizations and 12,624 claims.The results show that an organization's PSC is a key predictor of future time away from work due to injury and illness, associated costs, and lost profits. An employees' skill use, job satisfaction, and rewards all factored into the amount of time away and the financial burden that resulted. Decision-making authority, support from supervisors, and bullying were also relevant factors worth noting, which influenced overall organizational PSC. Specifically, businesses with very low PSC had 160% more days lost compared to those with high PSC (177 days vs. 68 days). Similarly, the cost of injury or illness, including health expenses and wages, was 104% higher in low PSC organizations compared to high PSC ones (AUD $67,260 vs. $32,939)."These findings provide more evidence that 'healthy' workplaces matter," said lead author Professor Maureen Dollard. "They are not only important to our psychological health and to prevent injury to workers, but PSC is just as important following injury or illness…Building an organization with strong PSC will help to reduce time lost and also cut costs through better injury prevention and management."

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PSC as an organizational level determinant of working time lost and expenditure following workplace injuries and illnesses'Healthy' workplaces a vital factor in clawing back billions of dollars lost to workplace injuries and illness