Review of Absenteeism--management's problem

Abstract

Reviews the books, Absenteeism--Management's problem by J. B. Fox and J. F. Scott (1943) and Teamwork and labor turnover in the aircraft industry of Southern California by E. Mayo and G. F. F. Lombard (1943). The reviewer states that these publications suggest the approach to the problems of absenteeism and labor turnover in which absenteeism's connection with external conditions of housing, transportation and sickness is only an indirect one. Absenteeism is considered a direct symptom of the general state of health of the internal organization and its conditioning of the workers' responses to these outside factors. Specifically the type of industrial administration that takes into account human relations is lauded. The second study confirms and supplements the first in describing more extensively the formation of teams, a natural outgrowth of the administration fully aware of human motivation. These teams ideally take over from first-line supervision much of the task of maintaining communication with the workers. Such a point of view tends to absolve the worker from a large share of the moral blame hitherto laid to him for absentee and turnover records. Absenteeism: Management's Problem in demonstrating the desired approach, above, relates of a case study carried on in the casting shops of three different companies whose workers were subject to similar outside factors. Several implications for management are stressed as a result of the Mayo-Lombard study. It is felt by the reviewer that the subject of organized labor, although not dealt with, is a pertinent one in these studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)