Bad and Good Part-Time Jobs - Essay Example

Running head: Employment Relations Employment Relations [Writer’s Name] [Institution’s Name] Employment Relations Non standard employment is also referred to as alternative work arrangements, market mediated arrangements, flexible staffing arrangements, atypical employment and contingent work (Olsen, 2004). It came into existence in the mid 1970s due to economic, political and institutional reasons. It is actually a new kind of employment that is different from the traditional employment done by the employer at a routine work place under the instructions of the employer. Hence, Ferber and Waldfogel (1998) used the name non-traditional employment relations for it. This subject has been under research since many past years. The question arises: Do non-standard types of employment relations (like part-time, contract and temporary work) make it more difficult to effectively implement human resource practices? The rest of the paper tries to answer that question in regard to the wages of the employees. Many factors contributed in the adoption of contingent work. For example, due to economic changes throughout the world, the companies were not able to provide enough jobs to people. Married women preferred taking the non standard employment. The non standard employments also helped in the development of technologies for some companies. Laborers had to pay a large amount of money as deductions from their salaries as mentioned in the labor laws. All these factors became the reason of the fame and popularity of the non standard employments. Research shows the increase of part time jobs in the periods of economic recessions and an increase in these jobs during the period of economic expansion. Every country has its own standards for defining the part time work. For example, in United States of America the part-time work is that which takes less than 35 hours a week whereas in Germany it is less than 30 hours per week. In contrast in Japan part time workers work equal the amount of regular workers. In Europe the amount of part time laborers is less than that in America. In industrial countries more number of females contributes in the part time jobs. In America mostly students and males do the non routine employment and fewer females do contingent work. Since the work in an organization requires a greater efficiency hence students and females like to do the contingent work. The ratio of increase in part time jobs is greater in Europe as compared to America for example, the proportion of part time laborers alleviated from 13% to 19% from 1957 to 1993. Countries like Netherlands, Scandinavia, Greece, Spain and Portugal also contain short term laborers with a varying number of women participating. Now the important thing is what benefits does this part time job has as far as employer and employee are concerned and what is its effect on the performance of human resource. Since part time workers demand “less” salary hence the employers get tempted to hire them but in 1988 Montgomery analyzed more than 4500 U.S. enterprises and found that part time workers demand high salary from bigger enterprises. Hence bigger enterprises have more number of regular working staff (Kalleberg, 2000). One of the advantages of part time working is that it is flexible that is it can be increased, decreased or even can be shifted to a new place whenever desired. Thus part time workers are also used by staffers to fulfill their staffing requirements. One good example is the health care centers which have used the part time employees for staffing the hospitals 24 hours a day throughout the week. There are both good and bad types of part time jobs. The good kinds of jobs include librarians, teachers, nurses and editors and the bad ones include sales, cleaning and catering etc. It is possible that a part time worker may be equally educated and experienced as a regular worker but mostly a contingent worker is less waged. Some countries think that part time job is as beneficial and important as the routine job and they have fixed good departments for the part time workers whereas some countries only think part time job as a source of earning low wages. They also receive lesser fringe benefits than the regular workers. Feldman (1990) and Tilly (1996) stated that part time jobs and workers are heterogeneous. “These workers tend to have a lower pay, fewer benefits, if any, engage in fewer organisational citizenship behaviours” (David, 2005, p.68). Every country has its own laws that where it places its part time workers, that is either in low paid marginal jobs or nicely paid respectful jobs. For example, in European countries people are more employed in less waged part time jobs but the trends are changing over the past years. Labor law is the deciding factor for any country as far as the treatment of their laborers is concerned. We take the example of a temporary service provider in the United States. This firm was established in the mid 1970’s in Chicago and was responsible for temporarily supplying calculating-machine operators. In countries like Spain, Belgium, France and Sweden the non standard employees are placed at par with the standard employees. Sometimes in this non standard form of employment, the employee is not directly communicating and under the direction of the employer. He may be communicating or collaborating with other employers to get the job done. For example, contract companies, temporary help agencies and leasing firms implement such Employment relations (ER) in which the administrative control is externalized. The tenure of the employment is also not fixed in the non standard form of employment. Sometimes such workers are sent to the clients on an hourly basis. Often they are provided formal training but the companies can fire the non standard employees more often. Other than this, “Employing more staff on a part-time basis entails higher administrative costs in terms of record maintenance, payroll calculation, supervision, training and recruitment” (Allan, 2000, p.189) With the passage of time the demand for temporary help services has increased since the employers can add the required number of employees whenever he desires. Whenever a firm is busy in a certain project and a new project or work is offered, non standard employment is the best way to get the job done. Non standard employment also helps the recruitment of certain employees for example if an employee is doing well in a non standard work, the employer can even decide to hire him permanently. The issue that is of importance is the control of the temporary workers. Often the temporary help companies implement the triangular relationship i.e. the temporary service provider is the main employer whereas the non standard employee is being supervised by the client organization. The control in such a case is difficult since it requires the control of the individual worker separately. This problem is solved by having multiple bosses for the diverse workers. Such issues are covered in the topics like “co-employment” or “joint employment.” In the non standard work like that given by contract companies the control is little easier compared to temporary help providers but it is also not very structured. There are also “independent contractors” who do not have an employer and they manage their taxes at their own. When line managers do not support properly the non standard staff, the learning of the latter is affected. The evaluation of the performance of the employer, whether the employee is regular or short termed, should be done at some predefined rules. These rules include how many clients are complaining about the employee, how much productive is the employer, how many shortcomings has the employee caused, how much legal and committed he has been and finally has he done what was required from him? Many people think that non standard employments will have a negative effect on the human resource departments. This is not the case because good companies know the fact that non standard employees are as important for their company as the regular ones. This non standard employment can also serve to hunt the talent because some people are really talented but need to carry their studies or sometimes they are females and have to give time to their homes. Employers should manage not to spend “a lot” on the training of non standard employees but at the same time they should not completely ignore their training. It is the need of the time to consider the fact that job of every person is important in the society and commitment at every level is required for the growth of any organization, society and country. The countries that prosper do so due to its people. The work of every person should be given due importance and heed. Every department contributes in the development of an organization. As it is said that a chain is as strong as its weakest link, similarly the even the smallest department plays an integral role because without that department the organization would be incomplete. When the organizational structure of the country would be strong, the country on the whole will prosper. References Allan, C.  (2000). The hidden organisational costs of using non-standard employment. Personnel Review, 29(2), 188-206 David, J.  (2005). The Effects of Part-Time Employees in Supermarkets on Human Resource Practices. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 12(1), 67-81. Feldman, D. C. (1990). Reconceptualizing the nature and consequences of part-time work. Acad. Mgmt. Rev. 15(1): 103-12. Ferber, M., & Waldfogel, J. (1998). The long-term consequences of non-traditional employment. Monthly Labor Rev. 121(5):3–12. Kalleberg, A. L. (2000), Nonstandard Employment Relations: Part-time, Temporary and Contract Work. Annual Review of Sociology, 26: 341-365. Olsen, K. M. (2004). Non-standard work in two different employment regimes. Work, Employment & Society, 18(2): 321-348. Rubin, L., & Merripen, C. (2003), Best Practices in Human Resources. Retrieved August 22, 2009, from http://www.igda.org/hr/IGDA_Best_Practices_HR.pdf Tilly, C. (1996). Half a Job: Bad and Good Part-Time Jobs in a Changing Labor Market. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press. Read More