Disability status, individual variable pay, and pay satisfaction: Does relational and institutional trust make a difference?

Abstract

Although prior research suggests that disabled employees have different needs in the context of some HRM practices, we know little about their reactions to reward systems. We address this gap in the literature by testing a model using the 2011 British Workplace Employee Relations Survey (disabled employees, n = 1,251; nondisabled employees, n = 9,959; workplaces, n = 1,806) and find that disabled employees report lower levels of pay satisfaction than nondisabled employees, and when compensated based on individual performance, the difference in pay satisfaction is larger. We suggest that relational (derived from trust in management) and institutional (derived from firm‐wide policies and HRM practices, both intended to provide equitable treatment to disabled employees) forms of trust play important roles. The results of multilevel analyses show that when trust in management is high, the difference in pay satisfaction under variable pay is reduced. We find just the opposite for employees who work in organizations with a formal disability policy but without supportive HRM practices; the gap in pay satisfaction is exacerbated. However, the combination of the presence of a firm‐wide policy and HRM practices reduced the difference in pay satisfaction. Implications of the findings for theory, future research, and management practice are discussed.

Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention Among People With Disabilities Working in Special Employment Centers: The Moderation Effect of Organizational Commitment

“…These findings can help HR departments to develop strategies to attract, engage, and retain these employees, who are a priority for organizations today, given that disabled individuals constitute an underused labor pool and can offer organizations the benefits of diversity (Shantz et al, 2018).…”

“…Despite the many studies addressing JS, not much research has explored the JS of people with disabilities (Houser and Chace, 1993;Rodríguez et al, 2014;Baumgärtner et al, 2015;Pagán-Rodríguez, 2015;Park et al, 2016;Akkerman et al, 2017Akkerman et al, , 2018Kocman and Weber, 2018;Shantz et al, 2018). Akkerman et al (2016) affirm that little is known about the JS of employees with disabilities, but given the enormous significance of work in people's lives, awareness of their JS is essential.…”

“…Attracting, engaging, and retaining a diverse workforce are a priority for organizations today. Therefore, understanding the factors that are associated with the satisfaction of disabled employees is important, given that disabled individuals constitute an underused labor pool and can offer organizations the benefits of diversity (Shantz et al, 2018).…”

Inequality and the Economic Cycle: Disabled Employees’ Experience of Work during the Great Recession in Britain

“…To which they can respond: No; Yes, limited a little; Yes, limited a lot. As in Hoque et al (2017) and Shantz et al (2018), employees are defined as disabled (9.7 per cent) if they are either limited a little or a lot. This approach is consistent with the definition in the LFS which is used to track progress on UK government disability commitments.…”

The role of work orientation and gender on feelings toward pay

“…In pay satisfaction literature, a considerable number of studies identified gender differences, showing that men are less satisfied with their pay (e.g. Balkin and Gomez-Mejia, 2002;Ataay, 2018;Shantz et al, 2018). The meta-analysis conducted by Williams et al (2006) showed that, when controlling for actual pay, "women were slightly more satisfied with their pay than are men".…”