3.work because of illness for a longer period is often involuntary and
caused by serious illness and not by unfavorable work-related characteristics.
Reporting sick from work frequently is assumed to be
“voluntary absence” and the result of a lack of motivation.21 Of the
dimensions of work engagement, a low vigor was most strongly related
to sickness absence. Previous studies found that the exhaustion
dimension of burnout—which could be considered as the opposite
of the vigor dimension of work engagement—significantly predicted
sickness absence.31,34
Employees with a low work engagement were more likely to
have a less than good work ability. This finding confirms previous
studies.14,35 Of the three dimensions of work engagement, the vigor
dimension had the strongest associationwithwork ability.Employees
who felt vigorous at work had a five times higher likelihood of
reporting a good work ability. It could be argued that the concepts of
work engagement and work ability are closely related. Nevertheless,
the correlation between both was low (Spearman ρ = 0.22).