Modeling employee absenteeism: testing alternative measures and mediated effects based on job satisfaction

Using a sample of hospital employees this study addressed whether job satisfaction mediates the relationship between absenteeism predictors and absenteeism and how well absenteeism predictors explained different measures of absenteeism. The results suggest that job satisfaction is not a mediator and that the independent variables explain more variance in records‐based time lost than in self‐reported time lost or self‐reported absence frequency. Implications are discussed in terms of using job satisfaction as a mediator as well as the viability of alternative measures of absenteeism. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.