Part-Time, Contract and Temporary Work - Coursework Example

Running Head: THE RISE OF PART-TIME, CONTRACT AND TEMPORARY WORK The rise of part-time, contract and temporary work Name Institution Date The rise of part-time, contract and temporary work Introduction Part-time, contract or temporary job is whereby the employee is assigned work for certain duration of time. These workers are sometimes referred to as the seasonal, freelance or interim depending on the context. Some of these jobs arise when there is work overload due to changes in seasons like the harvesting periods in the Agricultural sectors and in white collar jobs. The professional employees are referred to as the consultants. These workers can either be full-time or part-time depending on the individual cases or the program of the organization. For example, an organization can decide to have its permanent workers work during the day and the temporary ones work during the nights or any other time when the other workers are not available like during the weekends. Some of the part-time workers leave when the contract is over like in the casual labor while the professionals are retained in their fields although they keep on completing and renewing their contracts, thus although their working is continuous, they work on cycles whereby once the contract period ends they renew another one (Cheng-Ping, 2009). The management of most of the organizations prefers this system for various reasons: it gives the workers an opportunity to gain experience and perfection in their working skills and also proof their working abilities to their employers hence before recruiting them for permanent positions; they are guaranteed of their performance. The other common reason of preferring this system is because the services of the contractual are always cheap compared to the permanent one. Approaches of the management of the contingent workers The temporary workers need an extra attention unlike the permanent ones because they mostly rely on instructions from the employers. They are also under strict supervision of their employers and work to the best so as to win the favor of the employers when it is time to renew their contracts or during the process of promoting them to the permanent positions. The management mostly considers the performance of the temporary workers to determine when and to what level they can be promoted to (Kate, 2005). Contingent Workforce Management gives guidance on the best strategic ways of managing the contingent workers in an organization in a way that it reduces the cost of the labor and minimizes the risks in the company when employing them. Some of the temporary workers are those that are retired from other working environment hence are likely to join the news organization with their initial ways of doing things and are mostly not flexible to embrace new ways; others may not have had any experience in a working environment hence might cause difficulties orienting them and adapting the regulations of the concern organization. There are various approaches that the management of the organizations together with the contractual systems should put into consideration so as to run a successful program. These approaches are based on the area of concern from the time of preparing the process of recruiting the workers, all through their working period and activities undertaken to the end of the contract. The most considered approaches are the unitarist and pluralist. Unitarist is an approach which assumes that the organization should be seen as an incorporated and harmonious system. All the members including the management, staff and al the shareholders should have common interests, objectives and reasons. This enables them to work together as one towards the communal goals. It insists on partnership where the workers refer to each other as a partner and each should be granted the desired loyalty (Dalton, 2001). Pluralist approach explains that the workers in an organization should be recruited from different backgrounds and they should be allowed to hold their unique customs or cultural identities. This approach is not recommended because most of the employers are not able to manage it and the staff members mostly misunderstand it leading to disunity among them. Every human resource manager should be keen on the approaches that they take when carrying out their official functions like recruitment and selection or training and development of the contingent workers. The unitarist should be the best approach for any manager of an organization with the part time workers. This is because it has positive impacts on both the employer and the employee; the employer will be able to acquire good staffing policies which will help to unify the efforts of the workers or inspire and motivate them. Thus they will be able to easily recruit and select the best performing professional workers from the large number of the part-time workers (Cheng-Ping, 2009). When working together as an organization, the staff members will be able to assess the efforts of each work and hence it is easier to select those to be promoted to the permanent program and those to be given more time to gain enough working experience. When the employers and their employees have a perfect relationship it is easier for them to set and work towards a common goal because the objectives of each and every individual worker will be discussed and compared with the needs of a the organization and then a general conclusion is made4 depending on the views of each member. The management will be able to assess the abilities and disabilities of each individual worker hence able to offer the necessary attention; either by rewarding or using strategizing ways of upgrading or developing the skills of the employees. The reward systems for the well performing workers should be designed so as to secure the loyalty and commitments of these workers; that is they should recognize the efforts of the well performing workers (Jackson et al, 2008). The disabilities of the workers can also be well noted and ways of improving them identified. Having acquired this information the management can come up with a well planned program of training the workers on their areas of weakness. This is because the organization is preparing the part-time workers to hold high positions as permanent workers or even in the same level of contractual they still contribute to some extend in the final out put of the organization, hence the management should ensure that they perform to the best. The employees should be multi-skilled and flexible to undertake any task assigned in the organization. This calls for a good interaction with those skilled or others with different abilities so as to get ideas of doing things from them. The good interaction, teamwork or unity of different workers in an organization is best facilitated by the management which empowers the employees in their duties and emphasizes work force, innovation, imagination and discretion in solving the problems. The management acts as great role models in the working systems in the governing organizations; the skills and expertise of the managers should support the endeavors of the junior workers. This is best achieved if the managers build a good rapport with their newly recruited workers and help them adapt it (Denisi & Griffin, 2005). When there is teamwork, the contingents are granted the opportunity to make their decisions concerning the operations of the organization hence develop a sense of belonging to the organization. Some of these workers may have talents which remain dormant if a chance of developing and pronouncing them is not granted. For example, a worker may have abilities of making concrete decisions concerning the ideas of encountering various issues hindering good performance of an organization but may not have an opportunity of doing it. So as fit in the market competition brought about by globalization, the organizations should look forward into recruiting new workers who have the most recent working skills and providing them withy good environment interacting with others so as to teach them on this skills. The organizations cannot keep on permanently changing or recruiting the workers so it has to work on the part-time system (Jackson et al 2008). The management also prefers it because it is a way of reducing the costs of paying the benefits and retirements allowances. The part-time workers are not paid any interests or retirement allowances since there is no time set for them to retire or are not expected to work in the organization for more than the period set by the laws of a particular country. Thus there is nothing like retirement of the contingent workers. Conclusion Part-time or temporary employment is whereby the workers are assigned jobs for an agreed period of time then they quit or renew the contract depending on the covenant made between the employees and the employer. In the present world most of the organizations prefer this system of work due to the highly changing world and the demands behind it. There is the need of the workers to be equipped with the most recent skills of working hence the organization will need to keep on recruiting new workers. This is why most of the managements prefer a system which can allow them to regularly dismiss and recruit new workers. The management of these organizations should have good managing skills one of then being facilitating unity among the workers. This helps in exchanging or sharing of the working skills and empowering the workforce as one body aiming for a common goal. References Cheng-Ping, C. (2009). Individual Characteristics, Organizational Justice and Job Attitudes of Employees under Non-standard Work Arrangements: Study of Employees of International Tourist Hotels. International Journal of Management. Poole: Aug 2009. Vol. 26, Iss. 2; pg. 224, 16 pgs Kate G. (2005). Managing your contingent workforce. Rutgers: Rutgers University Dalton A. (2001). The power of one. Rutgers: Rutgers University Jackson S., Randall S. & Werner S. (2008). Managing Human Resources. Stamford: Cengage Learning. Jackson S., Randall S. & Werner S. (2008). Managing a global workforce: challenges and opportunities in international human resource management. California: M.E. Sharpe Denisi A. & Griffin R. (2005).Human Resource Management. Oxford: Dreamtech Press. Read More