Successful companies show that those who know how to reduce absenteeism among their staff have competitive advantages in the market, ranging from cost savings and lower organisational costs to better employer branding. However, one important factor of successful absenteeism management is often not appreciated enough.
Psychogenic (mentally induced) absenteeism: a serious problem
Increasing flexibility and mobility demands on employees, intensification and compression of work, greater networking and cooperation between humans and machines, increased cognitive and emotional stress - all this leads to mental stress that many employees cannot easily cope with. The result can be seen in the absenteeism and health reports published in 2017 by the federal government and various health insurers (e.g. AOK, DAK, TK): days of incapacity to work, pensions for reduced earning capacity and early retirement due to psychological impairments are rising steadily. It is not for nothing that mental risk assessment has been a legal requirement since 2014.
Absenteeism is expensive: lost added value, overtime, training time and, in some cases, overloading of colleagues compensating for absenteeism, continued payment of wages, additional organisational costs, penalties in the event of delivery problems and other opportunity costs. Psychogenic incapacity to work days (AU days) are particularly significant, accounting for approx. 17 % of all AU days and approx. 38 AU days per case of illness (the average of all cases of illness is 13 AU days). If one considers that days of sick leave due to impairments of the musculoskeletal system (approx. 22 % of all days of sick leave, 20 days of sick leave per case) and especially in their main group "back disorders" are strongly (co-)caused by psychological factors, the psychological component of absenteeism becomes even more important. Sleep disorders are also relevant in this context. For years, they have been on the increase in western industrial nations. Currently, about 35 million people in Germany suffer from them, which corresponds to 42 % of the population. Of these, 15 % - 20 % are in need of treatment. About 3/4 of all sleep problems are psychogenic insomnia (problems falling asleep, sleeping through the night and waking up). Although absenteeism due to these problems is rather low, an employee survey conducted by the DAK in 2017 shows that 3.7 % of all employees did not show up for work due to sleep disorders. Sleep disorders also cause major problems when people are present at work: Not only is performance reduced, but the risk of accidents and injuries also increases with the consequence of additional absences, which, however, are not statistically attributed to psychological factors.
How can psychogenic absenteeism be effectively reduced in the company?
Of course, the best way to do this is to change the conditions identified for it. In the 2017 baua study on mental health in the world of work, the most relevant work condition factors for mental health are identified by means of a scoping review and employee surveys and divided into 4 topic areas :
Work task
Working hours
Leadership and organisation
Physical environment and human-technology interaction
The focus here is on the conditions in the workplace. Changing them in such a way that pathogenic (disease-causing) influences are reduced and salutogenic (health-promoting) factors are expanded is a must without any ifs and buts, which unfortunately is often not tackled in company practice. One reason is that system-relevant components need to be changed, such as: Corporate culture, structural and process organisation, personnel structure, remuneration systems, workplace design and ergonomics, task and resource allocation, leadership and working climate, economic circumstances and job security, etc. This effort is gladly avoided.
The solution to this problem isguided by the fact that a large part of these "operational conditions" and the "behaviour of the employees" influence each other. Therefore, psychogenic absenteeism can also be reduced through measures that start where they directly occur: with the employees who are at risk of absenteeism. These measures promote salutogenetic attitudes and behaviour, have a preventive effect against psychogenic incapacity to work and positively influence health-relevant company conditions. These in turn have a health-promoting effect on the employees.
A modular approach includes, for example:
Absenteeism analysis, economically adapted to the respective company.
Mental risk assessment.
Setting S M A R T targets.
Estimate the cost savings from absenteeism reduction and the expected ROI.
Implementation and facilitation of health circles.
Salutogenetic attitude and behavioural training for employees (concerns prevention against mental health risks and resilience for mental demands) with methods that take effect quickly, are easy to teach and can be integrated well into everyday life.
Evaluation of the measures.
Conception of a salutogenetic sustainability strategy.
Practical example:
Situation: In a medium-sized service company, absenteeism in 2016 was just under 8.5 % of the target working time, in areas D and F even over 12 % with a rate of affected employees of over 60 %. A voluntary employee survey conducted in these two areas showed that more than 3/4 of all absences were due to psychological, psychosomatic or back problems (despite very good workplace ergonomics).
Planning and goals: All employees in areas D and F were to be recruited for salutogenetic training in the first half of 2017 with the aim of reducing total absenteeism by at least 1/3 in the second half of the year. The training participants should learn to understand and perceive psychological stress and to master preventive and salutogenetic self-help techniques.
Cross-divisional groups with an average of 15 people were formed, coordinated with the work organisation. For each group, 4 half-day trainings were scheduled at intervals of 4 weeks, individual coaching sessions in consultation and according to certain criteria, and a follow-up check after 8 weeks. A total of 60 people were to participate. The direct Lug costs for absenteeism in these areas amounted to 235 T € p.a. (If indirect costs are added, a factor of 1.2 - 2 is to be applied according to sample calculations). According to the above-mentioned 1/3 target, almost 40 T € of these 235 T € should be saved in the second half of 2017 and almost 80 T € in 2018 - a multiple of the training investment.
Implementation, contents and methods: During a kick-off event, which informed about psychological conditions of absenteeism, their personal and company negative consequences as well as useful personal measures, the employees were successfully motivated to participate in the training. Personal goal clarification, theoretical input, exercise practice and evaluation were the elements of each training session with the contents: practical communication of how psychological maladjustment works, understanding of salutogenetic and preventive concepts, sensitisation to individual factors of psychological maladjustment, mastery of individual preventive and salutogenetic self-help techniques. Methods were used from: Embodiment-oriented concepts, hypno-imaginative methods, impact approaches, solution-oriented counselling, systemic constellation work.
Evaluation: For more than 90 % of the employees, the subjective success rating 8 weeks after the end of the training was between 7 and 9 success points on a scale of 0 to 9. The measured absenteeism was reduced by 42 % from July to October 2017. These are good prospects for 2018.
In addition to the professional qualifications, the so-called "hard facts", the "soft skills" also play an important role for sustainable staffing in the company. These are secured by scientifically based aptitude diagnostics, which is a focal point at HR Consult Group AG. But when and where did aptitude diagnostics actually start? How did it develop?
In world history, many references can be found to earlier pioneers of aptitude testing. One example is ancient China. There, high public officials were selected using a standardised selection procedure. Applicants had to perform five arts and also demonstrate knowledge of rites and public ceremonies. The examinations were of a very high standard, so that the proportion of applicants who were finally accepted was extremely low.
Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) from England goes down in the history of aptitude testing as one of the most important pioneers. He made a name for himself because of his versatility in various disciplines. These included differential psychology, of which Galton was a co-founder. This deals with the differences between individuals in terms of psychological characteristics and states. For this purpose, he developed test procedures that could record psychological characteristics. He strove to quantify the characteristics as accurately as possible and dealt with both intellectual abilities and personality traits. In doing so, he always had his goal, the improvement of the human race, in mind.
He also developed the principle, still used today, of describing people by the deviation of their "measured value" from the mean value of a comparison group.
Since 1884, interested people could have their psychological characteristics tested by him in London. Characteristic of aptitude diagnostics were basic traits such as behavioural observation during the solution of difficult tasks and the recording of self-image and the image of others.
The first procedures of standardised personality diagnostics existed at the beginning of the 20th century through empirical psychological approaches. This was followed by an increase in standardisation and systematisation. Mainly, these early personality tests were used to distinguish adaptable and functional people from those with deviant behaviour.
The first personality tests of American origin were intended for use in military psychological examinations or for questions in clinical psychology. To a large extent, they covered constructs of psychology.
From 1920 onwards, there was the first development of occupation-related procedures. These already dealt with mental characteristics. They were already used to determine aptitude for a particular profession or to predict professional success. The first significant test of this kind was developed at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. This test was based on about 1,000 questions on various professional interests, which still serve as a source for new procedures today.
The use of clinically oriented personality tests for military questions was already successful, which led to the development of tests for psychopathological disorders (pathologically altered consciousness, memory and emotional or mental life). The MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) was specially constructed for this purpose. With the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), a procedure was finally presented that was closely based on the MMPI, but was primarily used for the selection of managers.
Our next contribution in this series of topics deals with the further course of history up to the present day.
If you have any further suggestions or questions on this topic, please feel free to contact us at the e-mail address k.rasthofer@senator-partners.de.
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
The first part of this series dealt with the first pioneers of aptitude testing. Now follows the further course of history up to the present.
After the development of the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) and the CPI (California Psychological Inventory), the use of personality tests increased steadily until the early 1960s, then peaked and slowly declined. More than 80% of all large companies used personality tests to select sales personnel. In 1984, it was barely more than a quarter of the companies. The reasons for this were the interactionism advocated by Walter Mischel (interaction of person and situation traits) and the growing public resistance to tests. This led to an intensive political discussion about these procedures, in which above all aspects of test fairness were in the foreground.
It was not until 1980, starting in the United States, that the topic was revived and became more and more important. The scientific as well as practical interest awoke anew. From the original merely translated tests to self-developed procedures, a change can be seen that confirms a further increase in interest until today.
It is interesting to see that the occurrence of the terms "personality test" and "aptitude diagnostics" in the German-language literature between 1900 and 2008 from the corpus "German" shows some differences, although there is a similar meaning of the two terms. This is illustrated by the following figure from the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz - Ingenieur bleibt Ingenieur":
While the term "personality test" gained popularity relatively early, as early as 1930, the term "aptitude testing" only became really popular after the Second World War in 1945. Since 1957, after a strong slump, "aptitude diagnostics" has recorded a steady increase, which has several times shown smaller fluctuations. On the other hand, the "personality test" has repeatedly recorded major drops in its incidence. There is, however, one thing in common. Both terms show a clear increase from 1996 onwards, which will continue to increase steadily. This means that both terms have arrived in the 21st century and continue to increase in popularity.
Nowadays, aptitude diagnostics is a collective term for occupation-related procedures for measuring competences and behavioural tendencies. In principle, aptitude diagnostics should provide the most accurate possible prediction of a person's likelihood of success or professional aptitude.
It should be noted that aptitude testing can look back on an impressive past, with further development to come.
Outlook: Our next article in this topic area refers to the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz - Ingenieur bleibt Ingenieur" by Armin Betz. Do you know which important and typical characteristics make up an engineer? You will learn about these and many other aspects, such as the importance of the development areas, in the following article.
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
What distinguishes a successful company from a less successful one? Of course, it requires market-driven products or services at appropriate prices. But beyond that, it is also about leadership, organisation and motivation of the team as well as the right communication with this team.
It takes a good leader, the captain, and the right culture. The leader, together with a small leadership team, creates incentives and a motivating atmosphere for open discussion processes in which everyone's resources are brought to bear. The supervisor shows with his behaviour that he serves the big goal of the whole company and keeps an overview at all times. He defuses power struggles and reduces politics in the company. He also provides a clear distribution of roles and decides when strategy changes, also called paradigm shifts, are necessary. Everyone agrees to break down the overall strategy into several sub-strategies.
This scenario is more complex in multinational teams because there are cultural sensitivities and these pose an additional challenge. For example, many Asians are often less direct in formulating and demanding goals and, at first glance, often act less proactively than their German-speaking colleagues, for example. This can lead to misunderstandings due to false expectations. It is better to cultivate a respectful way of dealing with each other that takes intercultural differences into account and that definitely uses conflicts to achieve goals effectively.
"Difference is an asset" is the motto: this method ultimately makes a decisive contribution to the success of sub-strategies and the achievement of the big goal.
Team spirit - easier said than done:
Team building is not a simple instrument. A major risk lies in the different rules of the game and motivations. These must be uncovered in detail and subordinated to the overall goal. It is important that the results are not attributed to individuals but to the team. Existing conflicts and their resolution are understood as necessary, respectful and at the same time goal-oriented communication on the way to success. Informal and direct, but at all times comprehensible dialogues are helpful here. Added to this is the appreciation of different characters, such as lateral thinkers, specialists and generalists.
But how can such a team spirit actually be achieved?
Maybe the following hints will help:
Structure: There needs to be a suitable and constant connection of all international staff to the headquarters, coupled with good education and appropriate training.
Leadership: This should be adapted to the situation, have "leadership as a role model" as its guiding principle and also explain itself on the basis of reciprocity: For example, the dialogue would begin as follows: "Please put yourself in my position. How would you act in my place to achieve our goals?"
Training: In addition, all employees should be involved in international projects and participate in as many best practice processes as possible.
Authenticity: A good example of high identification potential are concrete examples of employees who have been promoted and challenged at the same time and who have made comprehensible careers within the company at home and abroad. Such examples create a high level of identity and also the incentive to do the same as the promoted colleagues.
Career opportunities: Concrete perspectives for the individual's career are important, but are not designed for the short term, but rather for the medium and long term.
Especially today, in the age of global, fast and sometimes redundant communication, these aspects play a special role. Motivation and leadership make the difference! Especially with regard to matrix and project structures, which are becoming more and more common, the specific motivation of the individual and the right leadership of the team are essential keys to success in order to thus achieve a "we-feeling" in the long term.
With the help of aptitude diagnostic procedures, the individual strengths of a candidate can be precisely determined and the future career path can be optimally aligned with them. Often, job seekers are not even aware of where exactly their competences and skills lie and may not even be looking for the job that perfectly suits them. A career profile matching can bring completely new ideas and perspectives.
More than 10,00 participants took part in a survey conducted by HR Consult Group AG with the aim of obtaining an up-to-date opinion on the service and image of personnel consultancies. Among other things, the survey examined how well aptitude diagnostics procedures and, in particular, suggestions for suitable professional profiles are received by candidates.
Just under a third of candidates are willing to spend money on aptitude testing.
At 31 percent, just under a third of survey participants are willing to pay for a professional profile recommendation. Almost every fourth respondent would spend up to 49 euros for a professional profile recommendation, while 7 percent would even invest up to 89 euros. For more than a third, however, even 49 euros would be too expensive. At 32 per cent, just under a third of respondents have no interest in this advisory service at all.
If one considers the amount of the desired salary in the answers, it becomes apparent that the higher the sum stated, the less the cost factor plays a role. Candidates with a salary expectation of 150,000 euros and more form the largest group for both the answer "max. 49 euros" and "max. 89 euros". For the answer "too expensive", this group cast the fewest votes accordingly. Candidates with the lowest desired salary of 30,000 to 45,000 euros form the largest group for the answer "too expensive". However, if we look at the distribution of the shares for the answer "max. 49 euros", we see a similarly large need for all desired salary groups. In other words, the need for a professional profile recommendation is not directly related to the desired salary, but rather to the price of the service.
However, one thing is quite clear: as salary expectations increase, interest in this advisory service decreases. This is certainly due to the fact that candidates with higher salary expectations have already been in professional life for longer and thus have the corresponding professional experience. They usually already know where their own strengths lie and in which positions they can best use them.
"The professional profile matching helps candidates who are still unsure about where they want to go on their professional journey. But also people who want to completely reorient themselves thematically - i.e. dare a lateral entry - benefit greatly from this analysis. It provides security in the orientation phase and ultimately also helps in the actual job search. Because only those who know what they are actually looking for will ultimately find a job that really suits them," explains Matthias Barhainski, personnel consultant at SENATOR.
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
Due to the numerous appointments in technical and engineering-specific fields, the need arose for an aptitude diagnosis that is primarily tailored to engineers.
As a result of years of successful cooperation between HR Consult Group AG and geva-institut, an aptitude diagnostic was developed especially for engineers: the Soft-Skills Check. The geva-institut is a psychological consultancy specialising in diagnostics and HR consulting.
The scientific know-how of the geva-Institut and the many years of experience of the HR Consult Group AG came in handy.
Before the development of aptitude diagnostics for engineers, there was no test for this occupational group that came close to recording and evaluating personal, social and methodological competence with regard to engineering-specific characteristics. Although soft skills tests from various other fields already existed, these fragments were not specifically tailored to engineers.
For many years, HR Consult Group AG has been working closely with the geva-institut, which fulfils all the necessary quality criteria and ensures compliance with the DIN standard.
The good cooperation combines the theoretical elaboration of the procedures and the expertise from real interactions with companies and candidates. This creates a solid basis for the most accurate possible instrument for analysing personal, social and methodological competences. Even today, the test procedures are constantly being further developed. Strengths are further developed and weaknesses minimised by relying on empirical values.
The Soft Skills Check for Engineers answers questions on the core topics of motivation, behaviour, interest, leadership, educational path and activity.
In order to be able to record the different groups of engineers, the degree, age and leadership, industry, gender, hierarchy and activity are also prerequisites for meaningful evaluations.
These offer a possibility to form different clusters. A cluster is the totality of several thematically related profiles. The prerequisite for this is not only the differentiation of the various groups of engineers but also a high number of participating engineers.
In total, more than 1,500 engineers took part in the Soft-Skills Check in cooperation with VDI Nachrichten. The engineers became aware of this through the online and print editions of VDI Nachrichten. Only after the large-scale test was it possible to form a wide variety of clusters. For example, according to gender or field of activity.
It is clear from the above figures that the industry cluster shows the areas in which engineers are employed. Engineers are mainly needed and employed in the automotive and machinery and plant sectors. It is clearly visible in the cluster area of activity that most engineers work in development. Only in second place is project management.
A large proportion of the participating engineers are between 30 and 45 years old. This is also confirmed by the hierarchy. Many of the participants work as specialists or project managers. With the help of the hierarchy cluster, different examinations can be aimed at. For example, the hierarchy can be divided into specialist / skilled worker, project management, department management and divisional / executive management. Through this classification, the developments of personality traits can be determined and differentiated.
The next article in this series of topics will not only take a closer look at the personality traits that remain the same in their expression over the entire professional career, but also at those traits that are responsible for a career in engineering. Do you know in which personality fields development must take place in order to make a career successful?
Image source:
Betz, Armin: Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz - "Ingenieur bleibt Ingenieur", German National Library, 2015, p. 111 f., ISBN 978-3-00-052093-8
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
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