Human Resource Executive Online, June 9, 2010, Wednesday

Human Resource Executive Online

June 9, 2010, Wednesday

Human Resource Executive Online

Temp Contretemps

Two studies show that the presence of temporary employees in the workplace can increase feelings of job insecurity and dissatisfaction among full-time workers. Experts disagree, however, on what to do about the findings.

By Andrew R. McIlvaine

If your organization is planning to hire temporary workers in the near future, you might want to keep the results of two recent studies in mind as you seek to preserve harmony in the workplace.

Companies tend to ramp up hiring of temporary workers in the wake of recessions, and this economic recovery -- sluggish though it is -- is no exception: Temporary assignments accounted for 76 percent of the job growth in the private sector last month, according to the American Staffing Association.

However, two reports -- one from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the other from the University of Arizona's Eller College of Management -- find that the presence of temporary workers can have a negative effect on the attitudes of full-time employees.

The presence of temporary employees in the workplace leads to increased feelings of job insecurity and lower levels of job satisfaction among their full-time counterparts, according to the Cornell ILR study, which analyzed the findings of the Workplace Employment Relations Survey, a poll of British workers conducted every few years by the United Kingdom's Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

"One of the implications of our findings is that, if employers want to use temps, they need to think about how to reassure their permanent employees that they're not about to be laid off and that their jobs are not at risk," says Pam Tolbert, professor and chair of the ILR School's department of organizational behavior.

"Our analysis suggests that the presence of limited-contract employees has little effect on standard employees' perceptions of work overload, but strongly, negatively affects perceived job security," she says.

However, the University of Arizona study suggests that increased workload is, indeed, a factor in full-time employees' negative perceptions of temp workers.

"Having more temporary co-workers makes full-time workers' jobs more complicated, since they end up having to train these new people on a regular basis," says Associate Professor Joseph Broschak, who conducted the study.

Broschak and Alison Davis-Blake, of the University of Minnesota, interviewed 300 employees at two locations of a global financial-services company that made regular use of temps for its back-office operations and call centers.

Full-time workers who were part of work groups that included large numbers of temporary employees reported less satisfaction with their colleagues and supervisors than employees in work groups that did not have a large presence of temps. Additionally, full-timers said they were routinely expected to help train temps on company-specific processes, which often got in the way of their regular job duties.

"What really bothered the full-timers was that they weren't getting compensated or recognized for these extra duties," says Broschak.

Tolbert says HR leaders can lessen full-timers' anxiety about temps by keeping the groups separate from one another, whenever possible. However, Broschak argues for the opposite approach.

"Treating the population of [temporary] employees as a separate workforce can have unintended consequences for everyone," he says, adding that HR should ensure temporary workers are included in company social events.

"Allowing workers who are employed under different work arrangements to develop social ties at work is a key to developing a cohesive and well-functioning workforce," Broschak says.

A strong partnership between HR and staffing vendors is also key, says Jorge Perez, senior vice president of Manpower Staffing North America in Milwaukee, one of the largest staffing firms in the world, adding that his firm typically works closely with clients in screening temps and designing onboarding programs to help them get up to speed in new assignments.

Debbie Tidwell agrees that full-timers are often frustrated about having to help train temps. Tidwell, director of strategic accounts at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based global staffing firm Spherion, says her company also works with clients to help design orientation and training programs for temps in order to minimize the likelihood that permanent employees will be stuck with that role.

Ideally, both Tidwell and Perez say, companies will hire temps with the intent of bringing them on as full-time employees within a set time frame should they meet expectations.

"I think all of our employees would want to be permanent," says Tidwell, "if they had that option."

June 9, 2010

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