Globally, the demand for temporary workers is rising across organizations and sectors, driven by benefits of lower cost and workforce flexibility. Flexibility for organizations, however, means job insecurity for the temporary worker. This study focuses on understanding how the Indian IT sector’s temporary agency workers (TAWs), that is, temporary workers recruited by staffing agencies to work with client organizations, cope with their job insecurity. Grounded theory-based analysis of 36 interviews revealed that TAWs rely on enhancing their employability as the primary strategy to combat job insecurity. In addition, to enhance employability, TAWs make proactive efforts to perform consistently and upskill continuously. TAWs also expect support, largely in the form of learning and development opportunities, from the staffing agency and client to augment employability. The findings and recommendations in this article to help TAWs improve employability hold significance for TAWs, staffing agencies as well as clients. With enhanced employability, TAWs overcome job insecurity—an impediment to job performance, which is of direct relevance to the worker and the client—and also affects the staffing agency’s long-term relationship with the client.
The growth of temporary and non-standard employment arrangements post liberalization drives temporary agency workers (TAWs), especially of the information technology (IT) sector, to be agents of their own career identities. As a result, TAWs embrace self-managed/adaptable career management approaches namely protean career (PCO) and boundaryless career (BCO) orientations for their long-term sustainability and well-being. This study investigated the direct effects of PCO and BCO on TAW’s well-being, also, their indirect effects thorough perceived employability (PE). Study participants were 246 TAWs employed by leading Indian IT recruitment agencies and deployed to work for various IT clients. Data were collected through validated questionnaire and analysed through structural equation modelling. Findings confirm direct effects of PCO and BCO on TAW well-being and partial mediation effects of PE. Thus, to boost TAWs’ well-being, organizations may consider developing their protean attitudes via employee engagement programmes, staff agencies through counselling to map workers values/interest with their assigned projects, TAWs workers themselves proactively participating in the challenging assignment at the client place.
A lack of job security and other challenges mark the circumstances of temporary agency workers (TAWs). Yet, data from 511 TAWs of the Indian information technology (IT) industry captured via a structured questionnaire revealed the presence of volition or TAWs holding temporary jobs by choice. The study was conducted in two phases. In phase one, logistic regression was used to differentiate between voluntary and involuntary TAWs. In phase two, multiple regression was used to analyse the influence of volition on work engagement–overall and its individual components (vigour, dedication, and absorption). Logistic regression analysis showed that TAWs who were younger, single, educated in smaller cities and had worked for less than a year with a client were more likely to voluntarily choose temporary work. Further, multiple regression analysis demonstrated that such volition significantly boosts TAWs’ work engagement, in line with Self-Determination Theory’s perspective on autonomous motivation. The predictive model of categorizing TAWs into voluntary and involuntary groups based on demographic and job characteristics will help client and staffing organizations design customized policies for each group and promote factors enabling voluntary selection of temporary work arrangements.
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