Lanterna Rally

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Published: 2007

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9789279077845

The general aim of the PSYCONES project was to clarify the association between employment contracts and employee well-being and also company performance. The psychological contract was assumed to have a critical intervening role affecting these relationships. Eight partners have cooperated in conducting of the project: Sweden (coordinator), Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium (Ghent and Leuven), UK, Spain and Israel. A common assumption among researchers and policy makers has been that employees on temporary contracts are treated less well than permanent workers and are less satisfied. However the available empirical evidence reveals mixed results and no clear support is provided for these assumptions. Data has been collected by questionnaires from individuals and their employers in companies across seven European countries. The sample consisted of 5288 employees (3307 permanent and 1981 temporary) employed in 202 different companies in three sectors (education, manufacturing and service). Country samples are not representative and conclusions about country differences have to be made with some caution. Multilevel analyses and other more simple analyses were used to test the effect of individual differences as well as company characteristics and policies and country differences. Our results failed to support the assumption that temporary workers should be significantly disadvantaged. Instead, those on permanent employment contracts reported slightly lower levels of satisfaction and well-being on almost all of our measures. This result proved robust also when controlling for a range of possible confounding individual and work-related factors. The second broad hypothesis that guided the research was that the PC would act as a mediator in the relationship between the employment contract and the range of outcome measures. There was some support for this hypothesis as the measures of the psychological contract were found to fully or partially mediate a number of relationships between employment contract and well-being. Results showed very clearly that it was the measure of fulfilment or violation of the PC that appeared to be most strongly associated with outcomes. The content breadth had relatively little association with outcomes. On the other hand, workers views on their own promises to their organisation and the degree to which these had been fulfilled did have rather more impact. The third implicit hypothesis in the study was that four other classes of variables - employment prospects (including perceived job security), volition, job characteristics and 12 support - would act as additional mediators. However, the results showed very little support for this hypothesis. Perhaps the most important result from our research reveals the "invisible" problem of permanent employment. Excessive workload is one of the critical factors affecting wellbeing in our study and values are consistently higher among the permanent employees across sectors and countries. Among other work characteristics, we find also higher levels of autonomy and skill development among the permanent employees compared to temporaries but these positive effects are clearly outweighed by the negative effects of the higher workload. Furthermore, the broader psychological contract among permanent employees means a broader commitment towards the job than temporary workers. The feeling that employers break their part of the deal seems to have a marked negative effect, in essence that permanent employees feel unfairly treated. There is now a focus in Europe on job quality and our findings reinforce the importance of giving priority to this area. Legislation trying to balance flexibility and security needs also to include job quality and clarification and fulfilment of the promises mutually agreed within employment relationships in order to prevent stress and increases in the levels of sickness absence