A new research has shown that the people who suffer from domestic violence might also suffer at work losing out on costly work hours to distraction and absenteeism.
According to researchers who presented their findings this week to the Academy of Management, which is a research and teaching organization with nearly 17,000 members, women who were victims in the last year had lost an average of 249 work hours due to distraction, which has amounted to around 40% more than non-victims. The researchers had explained that they conducted their survey on employees of insurance company, a transportation company and an educational institution.Carol Reeves, Collette Arens Bates and Anne O'Leary-Kelly of the University of Arkansas, who conducted the study said, “In many cases, getting the attention and involvement of for-profit business organizations will require a demonstration of the bottom line costs they incur.” The study has provided the type of evidence, which implies that the employers need not choose between minimizing their operating costs and 'doing the right thing’.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centre for Injury Prevention and Control, has shown that the so-called intimate partner violence could cause a loss of nearly $1.8 billion in the economy due to the loss of productivity in a year, with almost 8 million paid workdays lost. The study that was conducted on over 2,400 workers in the US has shown overall that about 40% of women and 29% of men had reported violence from intimate partners at some point in their lives.
Reeves said, “Any time you have 40 percent of your work force dealing with something, I think that requires attention because that number is huge.” It was explained that the general distractions included difficulty concentrating, reduced speed in working, re-doing the work or doing no work at all. The study had shown that the male victims lost 244 hours a year to distraction, when compared with 202 hours for non-victims.
The study also showed that women who suffered recent violence also missed 143 hours of work to lateness or absenteeism, which was around 26% more than non-victims. Last year a survey that was conducted in an effort to determine as to just how many companies in the US have programs to deal with the issue by the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence, found that around 30% of the employees were of the belief that their company had such a program.
Jane Randel, a spokeswoman for an anti-violence program at Liz Claiborne Inc Said, that they had handled more than 80 cases in the past 5 years, and that many of its 8,000 U.S. employees may have used its referral services without alerting the firm. She explaining that, “Things aren't always exactly what they seem, she said that it was not always evident for others to see what very openly, like having a black eye.
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