JOB INSECURITY AND HEALTH IN PERMANENT AND NON PERMANENT WORKERS

1. JOB INSECURITY AND HEALTH IN PERMANENT AND NON PERMANENT WORKERS Inmaculada Silla, Beatriz Sora and Francisco J. Gracia. University of Valencia INTRODUCTION Despite the present growing of temporary employees in the labor market, the costs and benefits to both employee health and organizational performance, of increasing temporary work, are still unclear. Most of the results on the effects of temporary employment are contradictory. One of the main reasons for the contradictory results is that initial work involving temporary employees considered them to be an homogeneous population (e. g. Gannon, 1984; Gannon & Brainin, 1971), composed of low-skilled employees that would prefer a permanent job. Several studies suggests that although the majority of temporary workers are not voluntary, some temporary workers specifically choose temporary work arrangements over permanent work arrangements for different reasons (Aronson & Goransson, 1999; Barringer & Sturman, 1999; Feldman, Doerpinghaus & Turnley, 1994; Hippel, Mangum, Greenberger, heneman & Skogling, J. D., 1997; Issakson & Bellagh, 2002; Krausz, Brandwein & Fox, 1995; Pearce, 1998; Polivka, 1996; Tremlett & Collins, 1999). On the basis of these findings, it can be concluded that about a third of these employed as temporary workers express a preference for it. This does indicate that it is a variable that needs to be taken into account when considering the consequences of temporary work. In fact, in several empirical studies, this distinction between voluntary and involuntary temporary employees has revealed itself as relevant in understanding the implications of temporary work on individual and organizational outcomes ( Elligson, Gruys & Sackett, 1998; Issakson et al., 2002; Krausz et al. 1995; Krausz, 2000). On the other hand, although the majority of temporary workers are low-skilled, some of them are high-skilled workers. For instance, Segal & Sullivan, 1997 reported that most temporary work assignments require low skills, with approximately 75% of temporary employees performing blue and pink collar work. Complementary, these results imply that 25 % of these temporary employees are performing managerial, professional, and technical work. In addition, the evidence suggest that growth in temporary help services is happening in two areas, low skill blue and high skill white collar work ( Dieshenhouse, 1993; Golden & Appelbaum, 1992; Segal, 1996; Segal & Sullivan, 1997). However, literature about consequences of temporary work has considered temporary workers as an homogeneous group with low skills and a low preference for temporary work. There is enough evidence to support the existence of widespread heterogeneity amongst temporary workers. Specifically, a relevant percentage of non-permanent workers with high skills prefer this kind of contract. Contradictory results found in the literature about consequences of temporary work on individuals and organizations can be due to the fact that previous research has ignored the heterogeneity existing among temporary workers. AIM AND HYPOTHESES The purpose of this paper is to study the perceptions of job insecurity and health-related variables (well-being and life satisfaction) within different types of temporary workers and to compare them with permanent workers. Our hypotheses are the following: Hypothesis 1. Career and traditional temporary workers, as they perceived themselves as low employable (career and traditional) will report higher level of job insecurity than the rest of groups. Hypothesis 2. Traditional temporary workers will express less life satisfaction than the rest of groups. Traditional temporary workers will report less life satisfaction because they are not in their contract of preference, and in addition as they are not employable it is likely that they cannot find a permanent job during a long time. Hypothesis 3. Traditional temporary workers will show less well-being than the rest of groups, due to the same arguments mentioned in the previous hypothesis. FIGURE 1. Temporary Worker Types METHOD Sample The sample used in this study consisted of 385 employees from retail, healthcare and temporary help service organizations. Measures The following variables were measured: type of contract, preference of contract, employability, job insecurity (Cronbach´s alpha: .79), life satisfaction (Cronbach´s alpha: .78) and well-being (Cronbach´s alpha: .79). DISCUSSION RESULTS The aim of the present paper is to study the perceptions of job insecurity and health-related variables (well-being and life satisfaction) within different types of temporary workers and to compare them to permanent workers. Findings showed different levels of job insecurity among the different temporary employees depending of the level of employability. These results generally support the hypothesis 1. Ours hypotheses related to health-related outcomes were generally supported as well, traditional temporaries demonstrating to have the lowest levels of well-being and life satisfaction. The most important conclusion to be made is that temporary employees are not an homogeneous group. Differences among temporary employees on employability and contract preference have been found, and it has consequences on perceived job insecurity and health related-outcomes. These findings support the distinction among temporary employees of four types of temporary workers proposed by Marler et al. (1998): transitional, traditional, boundaryless and career. These results showed both theoretical and practical implications. It seems that future research should taken into consideration attitudes and perceptions of temporary employees rather than objective measures such as contractual status so as to better understand attitudes and behaviors. For instance preferred occupation could be another relevant variable to better analyse differences among temporary and permanent employees. In regards to the management of the temporary workforce some suggestions could derive from these findings. Employability should be enhanced in order to reduce perceived job insecurity, and avoid negative effects therefrom. In addition, employers should take into consideration if contractual status matches to the lifestyle of their temporary employees. Means and standard deviation are report in Table 1. The variables Crombach´s alpha were acceptable ( .79 - .78). One-way ANOVA were carried out to explore differences attributed to contractual status on job insecurity, well-being and life-satisfaction. Results are shown in Table 2. Post-hoc Tukey tests were carried out to obtain further information about the differences, when significant. Hypothesis 1 predicted that career and traditional temporary workers would have higher job insecurity than the rest of groups. The results provide support for this hypothesis. Career and traditional temporary groups reported the highest levels of job insecurity. Significant differences were obtained between traditional (p ≤0.001) and career (p ≤0.001) temporary groups and permanent group. In addition, significant differences were also obtained between transitional temporary group and permanent group (p≤0.001), transitional temporary workers perceive higher job insecurity than permanent workers. Also, as expected no differences were found between boundaryless temporaries and permanent workers. According to the second and third hypotheses, traditional temporaries had lower levels of life satisfaction and well-being than the other groups. The results provide support for these hypotheses, traditional temporary workers have lower levels of life satisfaction and well-being than other groups. Significant differences were found between traditional and transitional temporary groups in life satisfaction (p=0.026) and well-being (p=0.010) variables. Moreover, the differences between transitional temporary group and permanent group are also significant in well-being variable (p=0.035), Transitional temporary workers perceive higher well-being than permanent workers. Conforming our hypotheses, there are not significant differences between boundaryless, career and permanent groups. Aronsson, G. & Goransson, S. (1999). Permanent employment but not in a preferred occupation. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 4, 2, 152-163. Dieshenhouse, S. (1993, May 16). In a shaky Economy Even Professionals. The new York Times. Ellingson, J.E., Gruys, M.L. & Sackett, P.R. (1998). Factors related to the satisfaction and performance of temporary employees. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 6, 913-921. Feldman, D., Doerpinghaus, H. & Turnley, W. (1994). Managing temporary workers: A permanent HRM challenge. Organizational Dynamics, 23, 49-63. Guest (2002). Employment contracts, the psychological contract and employee outcomes: An analysis and review of the evidence. (Internal document). Hippel, C., Mangum, S. L., Greenberger, D. B., Heneman R. L. & Skoglind, J. D. (1997). Temporary employment: Can organizations and employees both win?. Academy of Management Executive, 11, 1, 93-104. Isaksson, K.S. & Bellagh, K. (2002). Health problems and quitting among female “temps”. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 11, 1, 27-45. Krausz, M. (2000). Effects of short- and long-term preference for temporary work upon psychological outcomes. International Journal of Manpower, 21, 8, 635-647. Krausz, M. Brandwein, T. & Fox, S. (1995). Work attitudes and emotional responses of permanent, voluntary, and involuntary temporary-help employees: an exploratory study. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 44, 3, 217-232. Marler, J., Milkovich, G. and barringer, M. (1998). “Boundaryless organizations and boundaryless careers: An emerging market of high-skilled temporary work”. Paper presented to the Academy of management Annual Conference, San Diego, August, 1998. Marler, J., Woodard, M. and Milkovich, G.T. (2002). Boundaryless and traditional contingent employees: worlds apart. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23, 425-453. Pearce, J.L. (1998). Job insecurity is important, but not for the reasons you might think: the example of contingent workers. Trends in Organizational Behaviour, 5, 2, 31-44. Segal, L. M. & Sullivan, D. G. (1997). The growth of temporary services work. Journal of economic perspectives, 11, 2, 117-136. Segal, L. M. (1996). Flexible employment: Composition and trends. Journal of Labor Research, 17, 4, 525-542 Marler, Milkovich & Barringer (1998) have argued convincingly that we should not treat temporary workers as homogeneous. They distinguished four main categories of temporary workers based on their preference for temporary work and their skill level (see Figure 1). The boundaryless worker, has high skills and a high preference for temporary work; and it could be linked to the knowledge or the free worker (Guest, 2002; Knell, 2000). The transitional worker has high skills and a low preference for temporary work and is therefore likely to view temporary work as a transitional arrangement, as a “step stone” to a permanent job. They are truly “temporary” temporaries. The career temporary worker has low skills and a high preference for temporary work. They are as likely as boundaryless to prefer temporary work because they are more interested in non-work pursuits. Guest (2002) refers to this group as permanent temporaries. Finally, the traditional temporary has low skills and a low preference for temporary work. In another study, Marler et al. (2002) using hierarchical cluster analysis with a representative national sample of 614 temporary workers obtained two groups of temporary employees, boundaryless and traditional. Traditional temporary group consisted of significantly higher proportions of blue collar and pink collar occupations and lower level of preference than boundaryless temporaries who were mainly white collar. The group of boundaryless temporaries was composed of a higher proportion of individuals who valued temporary work for its flexibility and had a greater level of education compared to traditional temporaries. REFERENCES Table 1. Means and standard deviation. Figure 2. Job insecurity, Life Satisfaction and Well being. Table 2. Analisys of variance for contractual status.