ABSTRACT

Absence and presence at work pose challenges to the management of organisations as well as to the workforce, unions, and other stake-holders. This chapter argues that there is a need for a new approach to the ethics of individual and collective responsibility in this field in order to fulfil the need for a sustainable workforce and corporate responsibility. Key in this process is the suggestion that the collective dynamics and the culture of teams and organisations shapes individual decisions to take up the sick role. Understanding and facilitating the emotional bonds the workforce has to their team and the organisation as a whole provides a vital resource in developing a sustainable and ethical management and human resource policy. Erik Erikson developed Freud's model into a highly accessible understanding of the way this "anal-urethral" stage of development expresses conflicts and dilemmas about the pleasure, relief, and loss of delivering urine and faeces.