Employee engagement and absenteeism: A step towards improving patient care

Introduction: Recent evidence indicates strong relationships exist between authentic leadership, employee engagement, and reduced burnout. However, little is known regarding the relationship between nursing staff engagement and absenteeism. This article describes how leadership implemented engagement strategies are used to reduce absenteeism on a general surgery unit in a Southeastern community hospital. Methods: The aim of this Quality Improvement (QI) project was to decrease absenteeism by 15% using employee engagement strategies derived from Maslow's hierarchy of needs over a 5-month timeframe. Employee attendance software was used to track absences pre-intervention from January to June 2018 and post-intervention from January to June 2019. Results: Sixty-seven percent of unit employees (n = 32) were eligible for data collection as they were staff during the pre- and post-intervention timeframes. There were 51 staff absences pre-intervention, compared with 37 absences post-intervention, resulting in a decrease in absenteeism by 27.5%. Discussion: This QI project illustrates strategies for nurse leaders to consider implementing to engage their employees and reduce burnout. These findings suggest that burnout is related to absenteeism, which can affect the quality of patient care. This QI project is the foundation for a future study that explores employee engagement strategies in reducing absenteeism to improve patient care.