SYKEFRAVÆR-Forskn.om årsaker til sykefrav

We have limited evidence of quality work within kindergartens aiming to reduce sickness absence and increase individual and collective performances. In this study we develop an intervention with the overall aim of increasing employee coping, quality work, and reducing sickness absence in kindergartens. This is done by exploring kindergarten employee's understanding of quality work, what motivates them in their work, and, necessary feedback within the work environment for increased motivation. The starting point for our intervention is that employees in kindergartens experience a lack of positive feedback on their work effort. The kindergarten staff has a wide range of work tasks; direct children-orientated work, practical tasks, and parental follow up. Fe edback on an individual's competence and competence development in providing quality care through these tasks is unsystematic. Feedback could be the smile from a child, the attention of the management, or feedback from a parent. We believe that this type of unsystematic feedback is not sufficient. Our intervention will provide a system for positive feedback by 1) developing goals and measures of quality of care, 2) identifying important behaviours for quality of work, and 3) developing an intervention pro viding employees positive feedback on these behaviours in a self-regulatory way based on interactive software. Our hypothesis is that continuous positive feedback will increase motivation, work satisfaction and feelings of self-efficacy and thereby change work performance and reduce sickness absence. We have chosen kindergartens as the field for our feedback intervention as the sickness absence in this sector is higher than 12 %. The high sick leave is a reason for concern, as this is an additional challe nge in a sector that is already struggling with recruitments, turnover and increased demands as work within kindergartens provide a crucial foundation for children's development and continuous learning later on.