Labour Contracts: An Analysis of Possible Arrangements - Essay Example

Labour Contracts: An analysis of possible arrangements Labour Contracts: An analysis of possible arrangements Introduction Cognizant of the Labour Act, a labour contract receives classifications as being a contract that exhibit a fixed term. Additionally, it is an indefinite term based on the required time to perform a particular task (Chen, 2011). Chen (2011) adds that Labour Contract Laws should emphasize the need for the labour contracts to specify the details that concern the employers, the employees, and the matters of social insurance provisions. For instance, the requirements must stress on the criticality of the insurance for the employee’s protection and measures taken against the predictable occupational hazards. To enter into a contract, one requires a certificate from the local labour offices that acts as an administrative and supervisory procedure. Further, invalid employment contracts are not legally binding. However, when part of the contract is invalid, the rest remains valid as long as the remainder is not dependent on the invalid section. Vis (2010) notes that collective labour agreements usually aid to solve the various aspects of the collective action dilemmas given that they provide coverage for sufficient numbers of employers in the different industries (Gordon, 2014). For instance, the Netherlands provides part of the coverage by law, hence, enabling the enforcement of the collective labour agreements. Therefore, this essay will provide a critical analysis of the possible arrangements envisaged in the labour contracts. Contextually, presenting an analysis pertinent to the labour agreements demonstrate a relation existing between the investments made in the employability sector and the items that offer regulation to ensure flexibility in employment. Essentially, it is simple to attain an agreement on investing in employability through offering training that does not relate to the job. Besides, the coaching should not be specific to functions, and there should be plans to further personal development. Moreover, the employer’s flexibility needs to have foci to ensure the validity of the agreements. Thus, the individual development plans indicate mechanisms that can allow the employability and the security productivity in the system of job security (Baumann, Mechtel, & Stähler, 2011). When arrangements are not available regarding the employability, numerous collective agreements will lack arrangements about flexible contracts of labour (Green, Kler, & Leeves, 2010). Conversely, when there exist arrangements for employability with the agreements of collective labour, many of the contracts of employment will have agreements. Hence, it is paramount to have multiple possible agreements within the contracts to ensure that the employability section runs smoothly (Legemaate, 2011). Analysis of the possible contract arrangements Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) In the contemporary context, the organizations that offer employment opportunities to the workforce have increasing adopted the work-family programmes, for instance, the work arrangements that are flexible due to the reaction to the socio-demographic changes exhibited. The flexible work arrangements constitute employer benefits that allow the workforce to have some degree of control over where and when they want to work regardless of the stipulated working days (Allen, Johnson, Kiburz, & Shockley, 2013). Such flexible work arrangements involve the flextime, part-time jobs, telecommuting, and the compressed work weeks. The flexible work arrangements strike a balance between the dual-learner couples, women, and the single-parents that tend to assume the responsibilities of caring for the elderly. Thus, the employees in the workplace situations demand flexibility to cope with the burdens arising from their families (Masuda et al., 2012). Regarding the institutional theory, various organizations need to adapt and strategically react to their diversified institutional pressures that result from cultural diversifications. The theory helps to identify the various cultural expectations held by the different groups of people in the workplace. For example, it elucidates the gender equality, a factor that may prompt the employers to integrate the flexible work arrangements into their employments. Masuda et al., (2012) assert that the adoption of the flexible work agreements accrues to the individualism-collectivism aspect. In perspective, individualism encompasses the degree of the people to set prioritized individual goals as opposed to group goals and prefer choosing loose ties over the personal ties. On the other hand, collectivism identifies the extent to which the employees express pride as part of a group, family or community. The aspect of collectivism is contrary to that of individualism in that collectivists prefer choosing close ties as opposed to personal ties. They are encouraged to have explorations of the need to experience belonging with the other people. Opponents of the FWA posit that the conception can lead to limitations in the physical and daily contacts exhibited by employees, colleagues, and supervisors in the workplace. The situation may hamper the extent of the work quality and relations in the working milieu. Regarding the frequency of telecommuting, there is an accentuation of the negative relationships that arise from the quality of service delivery and the telecommunication (Smith, 2013). The increased intensity of a telecommuter undermines the depth of ties experienced between the co-workers. It is eminent that congruent features arise in association to the collectivist culture where the employees place importance on establishing working social ties. Evidentially, empirical evidence highlights that the countries and organizations that practice the FWA have a likelihood of more workers in the employment sector as opposed to those that do not. Nevertheless, the organizations implementing the FWA experience employee job satisfaction and high workforce turnouts (Palmer, 2012). Further, the employees have low family conflicts due to their capacities to have control over the timings of their jobs leading to them having time to handle the family matters. These kinds of labour contract arrangements require organizations to have more resources to employ more workforces. For instance, finances are a core factor that employees need to have foci to integrate FWA into their organizations (Graaf-Zijl, 2012). Fixed-term arrangements In the post-modern arena, the labour markets still experience an existence of a two-tiered market phenomenon. There is a segmentation of the workers based on the degree of the protection offered by the job. The market still label workers as temporary and leads to them enjoying little benefits as compared to their permanent counterparts. Such arrangements lead to the disadvantaging of employees as they receive low pay, increased transit across jobs, and high job turnovers. Shutao, Enchuan, & Silos, (2010) confirm that the literature lacks explicit theories to shed a light on the two-tiered labour markets. They concede that some labour markets have a situation where the worker-firm pairs begin relations based on the temporal arrangements while others begin on the permanent basis. The segmentation observed in the labour markets is due to the evolving technologies assuming that the different workers in the varied contracts make diverse factors in the functions of production. Besides, the segmentation may result from the different preferences held by the workforces and primarily because of the market frictions. Shutao et al., argue that workers enter into temporary work arrangements with a lowered level of job productivity. As the employees prove the capability to deliver higher production levels, the firms can decide to offer them permanent contracts with the security of their jobs. However, they realize that the government is the core factor in the identification of the jobs as temporary or permanent. Moreover, the temporal employees are vulnerable to firing and hiring since they are relatively cheap. When the degree of the labour market tightness adjusts, there is a lowered fall of the temporal workers because of the fewer upgrades from temporary to permanent contracts. The related ministries need to revise these kinds of contract terms to enable the employees have a sense of belonging. The situation will allow the workers to identify with their jobs and bolster their job performances (Nunez & Livanos, 2015). The problem of fixed-term contracts engulfs the education sector where there is a failure to renew contracts at the end of the semesters, school years, or during the withdrawal of large allocations of funding. The affected employees are ever on toes to determine whether their contracts are due before the next contract. The situation is tight because of the informed labour unions formed to guard the teachers and lectures. Hence, the high stakes explain the reason the unions and the employers have and the interests of knowing whether the employees comply with the rules and regulations. The non-renewal of contracts lead to stressful a work experience since the workers are not certain when their jobs are ending. Jaman et al., (2014) critically analysed the impact of organizational change on the fixed-term employees. Anecdotal evidence showcase increased job strains, presentism, and sick leaves in the public service sphere. Also, there is a decreased commitment to the organizational goals and objectives due to the lack of confidence of job security. Mindful of this situation, the public sector workforces tend to report increased levels of psychological stress as opposed to their private sector counterparts (Jarman, 2014). Hence, the temporary job arrangement provides a platform of workforce mobility experienced in the public sector. On the other side, the private jobs tend to offer better remunerations and extended contracts as compared to the public sector. The fixed-term arrangements offered by the government gives a little change in the personal development leading to increased retrenchments in search of the actual personnel with qualifications. In reality, theoretical thinking postulates that temporary job arrangements often associate with low pay, unstable jobs, and numerous spells of unemployment. Similarly, the signaling theory argues that the potential employers seek to suggest that temporary employment offers low-quality work (Dettmers, Kaiser, & Fietze, 2013). The situation then leads to a condition where the employers do not invest in the development of their workers. For instance, such arrangements reduce the likelihood of longer-term arrangements and training investments. Eventually, there is an overall dwindling on the accumulation of the relevant skills and a great depreciation of the perceived human attitude. By ways of contrast, policy interventions postulated in the recent past portray fixed-term employments as opportunities through which the employers scrutinize and select the best employees before offering them permanent job terms (Brescoll, Glass, & Sedlovskaya, 2013). In this viewpoint, temporal employments promote competency and skills development besides being a transitory step that propels the employees’ upward mobility and stabilization in the job context (De Cuyper, Notelaers, & De Witte, 2009). Permanent work arrangements The mounting pressures concerning the increased precariousness relating to employment arrangements are fuelling the global interest in the shifting nature of work arrangements. The situation receives characterization from the relentless retreat arising from the standard timings and the corresponding proliferation of job alternatives. Further, it involves the nonstandard job arrangements, which fail to meet the work expectations of the workforces. For instance, the rising nonstandard work arrangements encompass the augmented part-time, temporary jobs, and casuals (Garnero, Kampelmann, & Rycx, 2014). There are also other nonstandard work arrangements that demand early morning hours, overnight, evening, and weekends alongside those that require scheduling of work practices during the odd working hours. Considerable researches highlight accumulated effects resulting from the nonstandard working times. Among the permanent workers, there is a tendency of working long hours that might lead to experiences of deleterious consequences. Henly & Lambert, (2014) allude that uncertainties often embed in the indices of nonstandard working times and other precarious work arrangements. The bid to strike a balance between the aspects of demand and production is critical in the production system, realizing this situation involves all means of diversified inventories. Scholars argue that temporary work arrangements are a route to improved jobs. In this respect, the employers use the temporal perspective to offer permanent jobs to the candidates that perform well. Essentially, temporary jobs serve as a ladder to the better quality employments due to the provision of exposure, experience, and networking. In less regulated markets, there are plenty of ostensibly permanent contracts that prove to be not secure just as the temporary work arrangements. As Fuller & Stecy-Hildebrandt (2014) note, permanent employees often stagnate in the diversification of their skills and personal development as opposed to their counterparts in the temporary working environments. They posit that in the long term, the temporary workers can have an increased upward mobility that provides alternative career paths while the permanent and “comfortable” employees relax in same positions with meagre personal developments. Large numbers of companies prefer externalizing their workforces to allow them adjust the number of workers in responding to the changes in the business setup. ILMs provide opportunities to employees for the improvement of their capabilities and skills. The opportunities gear toward the employment objectives that vary from the ones contained in temporary employment. Regarding the changes observed in the workplace institutions, employers ought to instigate changes to their employment policies and regulations. The various governments have enacted the labour laws that regulate and shape the employers’ policies and practices in the departments of the human resources management. For example, in South Korea, the incumbent government enacted TEPA to regulate the usage of temporary employment terms and provide the necessary support to the temporary employees. Contextually, companies need to effect transition of the temporary employees into the permanent employment to comply with the novel legislations (Hyondong & Dong-Jin, 2014). Various stakeholders that have competing interests pursue varied employment goals such as equity, voice, and efficiency to enable the creation of balance among the employees in the permanent job environments. The transitions observed from temporary jobs to permanent employments should comply with the changes made in the employment regulations and laws. These transitions gain facilitation from the compatible features of various employment systems to satisfy the demands of the employees concerning the work autonomy and fair treatment. Casual job arrangements Numerous atypical forms of work opportunities spread the world over, and these forms of employments encompass casual and unplanned work. For instance, in Hungary, the Casual Employment Act of 1997 has foci on reducing the tax and contributions to social security from the casual labourers. The amendment of the 1997 Act aimed at reducing the illegal jobs through making the legal casual work easier and cheaper for the employers to administer. In this context, the people that received the CEB rose remarkably, more so in the third world countries. Similarly, the numbers of the people taking the CEB increased (Buddelmeyer & Wooden, 2011). Moreover, there was an observation of gradual increments in the numbers of registered but unemployed individuals. Also, the employers resorted to offering employment to the casuals, moving away from the typical forms of work arrangements to the ones that seem favourable to them. The phenomenon explains the sudden change in popularity of the casual employment (Cappelli & Keller, (2013). Within this context, the employers experience an easy administration of employees since there are no holiday vacations for employees, sickness benefits, or payment of severance dues. The situation accentuates since the casual labourers do not establish work unions to fight for their rights. Hence, dismissal is unproblematic. Conclusion Pertinent to the labour laws exhibited in the working milieu, employees need to identify and enter into legal work arrangements that offer better remuneration, sick leaves, and compensations. The public employment sector should also establish and define the best rules and regulations that protect the employees’ interests, health, and boost their personal developments. 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