Absenteeism and Employee Turnover as Indicators of Job Satisfaction, Commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior?

Research has shown that job satisfaction and commitment to an organization have a negative correlation with absenteeism and employee turnover. This thesis used data gathered from the Icelandic CRANET survey from 2006/2007-8 and 2012/2013 to see if a relationship can be found between absenteeism and employee turnover, as well as to check if absenteeism and turnover could be used as proxies to indicate possible changes in employee job satisfaction or commitment in the Icelandic labor market. Furthermore, since absenteeism and employee turnover are behavioral outcomes, it is also suggested that employees' organizational citizenship behavior could be a factor when it comes to absenteeism and turnover. Results showed that employees' organizational citizenship behavior had a negative correlation with absenteeism and that job satisfaction had a negative correlation with turnover. This indicates that absenteeism is induced by behavioral aspects, while turnover is affected by the employees’ perception of their job.