Employers’ response to workplace absenteeism in Tanzania the case study of public and private schools in Ilala municipality and Mkuranga district

Employee absenteeism is one of the challenges facing many organizations worldwide. For employers, maintaining timely and consistent attendance of employees at workplace is critical for productivity and service delivery performance. However, employee absenteeism seems to be chronic in most third world countries, including Tanzania. A study was, therefore, carried out to investigate absenteeism in public and private schools in Ilala Municipality and Mkuranga District in Tanzania. The aim was to investigate measures put in place by employers and their effective utilization in responding to the problem of the workplace absenteeism in Ilala Municipality and Mkuranga District respectively. To achieve this objective, the study employed qualitative approach based on the Expectance theory by Vroom (1964) and Process model of attendance by Rhodes and Steers (1978). The study relied on in-depth interviews and documentary review to collect data which was analyzed using excel, content and thematic analysis. The results were reported using graphs and tables. This study found absenteeism rate to be 40% and 3% in Public and Private schools respectively in Mkuranga District and 16% in public and 2.6% in private schools in Ilala Municipality in 2013. In 2014(January to March) the rate was 36% and 3.2% in public and private schools respectively in Mkuranga District and 34% in public and 2% in private schools in Ilala Municipality. This study also, revealed that there are numerous measures that have been put in place to deal with teachers’ absenteeism both in private and public schools. These measures include warning, salary deduction, stopping payments, dismissal, and attendance bonuses. However, these measures are not seriously executed in public schools. For instance, absenteeism rate is as high as 40% in Mkuranga District and 16% in Ilala Municipality in 2013 but the absenteeism case reported for disciplinary measures in District and central government management were only 4% in Mkuranga District and 1% in Ilala Municipality. Also, there was a delay of taking disciplinary actions for reported absenteeism cases. Moreover, motivation to public schools teachers is still a problem. The study recommends that the managements of private schools should retain their strictness in dealing with teacher absenteeism. On the other side, the government should learn the private schools model of dealing with teachers’ absenteeism. Hence it should ensure effective utilization of available measures, improve teacher working environment, promotion and paying salary arrears on time. Again heads of schools should stop covering absenteeism behavior of their subordinates. Furthermore public secondary school management structure should be re- organized to introduce field of supervision at a division level.