Much discussion has centered on using the right techniques to attract quality staff and then making sure the right leadership methods are in place to retain them. Businesses today are putting a significant amount of resources and focus on developing their existing staff. By helping them reach their potential, increase their productivity and efficiency, and connect their goals to organizational objectives, they’ve created a sense of community which enhances worker affectivity and commitment to the organization. But how does all this work for personnel that are brought in through a temp agency or those whose positions are governed by a contract with no guarantee of renewal? How do leaders get the best performance from a worker who, because of the transitory nature of the position, is unlikely to even try to develop an attachment to the organization?
This reasonable question is what initiated an interesting study published in the Winter 2010 edition of Human Resource Development Quarterly (Djibo, Desiderio, & Price, 2010). The annual reports published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show an increase in the number of businesses utilizing temporary, or contingent, workers to augment their regular workforce. As such, the work attitudes and organizational citizenship behaviors of these workers can have considerably more impact on operational efficiencies and productivity than it did 30 years ago when temps were mostly tapped to cover for regular employees on short-term medical absences. In order for organizations to reap the greatest benefit from employing temporary employees, positive organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) need to be encouraged and developed. The challenge here is that OCBs have been found to be directly associated with the presence of organizational commitment (Organ, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006), and that brings us back to determining what can be done to promote commitment in a temporary work arrangement.
It’s common for temporary employees to feel alienated from the organization to which they are assigned as well as disconnected from their coworkers (Rogers, 1995). In this environment, it’s not likely that they would develop an attachment to the organization and be dedicated to helping it achieve its goals. Bohn and Grafton (2002) suggest that leadership is one of the fundamental factors that shape both the work environment and organizational culture, influencing the organizational experience of the workers. Djibo et al. (2010) found that supportive leadership was positively correlated with OCB and affective commitment of the 200 temporary workers who participated in their study. More specifically, their results showed that supportive leadership had a strong positive influence on the OCB of the temporary workers while instrumental and participative leadership both had a negative influence. Djibo et al. (2010) suggest that these findings indicate that temporary employees are not necessarily motivated to perform well by a sense of obligation, but more likely just because they like their supervisor. They believe that the reason for the negative influence by participative leadership is that it involves enhancing the workers’ collective identity in the workgroup setting. Temporary employees are reluctant to develop a group identity due to the psychological effect of being under a contract term that dictates the boundaries of their employment relationships. Consequently, a supportive leadership style would be most effective at stimulating emotional attachment and commitment to the organization’s goals in temporary and contract employees.
References
Bohn J.G. & Grafton, D. (2002). The relationship of perceived leadership behaviors to organizational efficacy. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 9, 65-79.
Djibo, I.J.A., Desiderio, K.P., & Price, N.M. (2010). Examining the role of perceived leader behavior on temporary employees’ organizational commitment and citizenship behavior. The Human Resource Development Quarterly, Volume 21, Issue 4, Winter 2010. DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.20049
Organ, D.W., Podsakoff, P.M., & MacKenzie, S.B. (2006). Organizational citizenship behavior: Its nature, antecedents, and consequences.. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rogers, J.K. (1005). Just a temp: Experience and structure of alienation in temporary clerical employment. Work and Occupations, 22, 137-148.