Alternative duty work as workplace-initiated procedure to reduce sickness absence

Abstract

PurposeAlternative duty work is a procedure that enables an employee with a short-term disability to perform modified duties as an alternative to sickness absence. We examined whether the implementation of an alternative duty policy was associated with reduced sickness absence in the Finnish public sector.MethodsTwo city administrations (A and D) that implemented an alternative duty work policy to their employees (n=5341 and n=7538) served as our intervention cities, and two city administrations (B and C) that did not implement the policy represented the reference cities (n=6976 and n=6720). The outcomes were the number of annual days, all episodes, and short-term (