LEADING THOUGHTS

In academic literature, contract workers often have a bad rap. According to the popular core-periphery model, workforces have a central core of ‘‘insider’’ permanent employees in whom the organization is willing to invest and a group of ‘‘outsider’’ contingent workers regarded as peripheral.

Given that organizations invest little in these contract external workers, researchers generally believe that these outsiders are less likely to internalize the organization’s values and are less productive.

According to researchers Lapalme, Stamper, Simard, and Tremblay (U Quebec at Montreal and Western Michigan University), most studies fail to account for how agency workers perceive themselves. Is it possible for “outsiders” to perceive themselves as “insiders”? If so, what are the conditions in which that would happen?

The researchers surveyed 191 agency workers from Canadian financial firms, assessing their perceptions regarding the level of support from both their supervisors and the client firms’ permanent workers, as well as the agency workers’ level of perceived insider status and emotional attachment to the client firm. Agency worker supervisors (within the client firm) assessed the agency workers’ level of interpersonal relations.

They report three findings:
1. Agency workers can indeed experience “perceived insider status.”
2. Those perceptions grow out of perceived support from supervisors and the client firms’ permanent workers.
3. Perceptions of insider status are linked to higher levels of emotional attachment and interpersonal relations, even among workers considered marginally tied to the organization.

“As our results suggest, it is not the ‘objective’ classification of externalized worker that is associated with worker attitude and behavior, but how the workers are treated by important organizational agents that leads them to feel like an ‘insider,’ creating greater likelihood of reciprocation of higher affective commitment and interpersonal facilitation even from externalized workers.”

Implication: Smart organizations should ensure that their permanent employees understand the importance of creating a supportive environment for contract workers. Of course, that may be a tough sell. For some permanent employees, the use of agency workers may be perceived as a threat, even if it may be beneficial.

Here is how to frame the message: “In some cases, the use of agency workers actually helps provide a certain degree of job security for permanent employees,” the authors write. “By using temporary workers to expand or shrink their workforce, organizations may shield their permanent employees from layoffs caused by numerous factors such as business cycle fluctuations or downsizing. Accordingly, managers would benefit from explaining why they have chosen to use agency workers, in order to reassure their permanent employees and ensure that they are more likely to support these colleagues.”

“Bringing the outside in: Can ‘external’ workers experience insider status?” by Marie-Eve Laplame, Christina L. Stamper, Gilles Simard, and Michel Tremblay; Journal of Organizational Behaviour (30, 919-940; 2009)

If you cannot find this paper in your local library, email me for a copy: Alan [at] AlanMorantz.com

photo credit: The Other Dan

Colleague Andrew Graham alerted me to a forward-looking report produced by the Washington-based IBM Center for The Business of Government. “Ten Challenges Facing Public Managers” is a call to action for public sector leaders, particularly in the U.S. Read ‘em and weep:

Fiscal Sanity: “America’s current social insurance programs are both costly and antiquated. It is time to take a fresh look at reforming these programs to reflect current economic and budgetary considerations.”

Crisis of Competence: “The issue isn’t always ‘who does the work’ but rather ‘do we have the right talent at the right time doing the right job with the right level of accountability?’”

Information Overload: “The threats of information overload, and the possibility of missing important information needed to make informed decisions, has increased. However, breakthroughs in data capture, data standards, and data storage have created opportunities for large-scale analysis.”

Governing Without Boundaries: “Government is increasingly turning to non-hierarchical ways of doing business, often called ‘collaborative networks’ and ‘boundary-less organizations.’ However, these new models raise questions about
how to govern effectively in a network-based environment.”

E-Government Is Only the Beginning: “Public managers will need to embrace the long hard slog to standardize and integrate their operations. They will need to reframe service delivery around the customer.”

Government by Contractors?: “The government needs to take a strategic look at contracting, decide how to manage it, the appropriate roles for all parties, and the right contracting methods. Most important, it needs to invest the necessary resources to make working for the government more attractive.”

Results Really Do Matter: “Federal departments and agencies are confronted with long-standing and substantial challenges to becoming more results-oriented. Solving these problem areas will require a performance-driven system that builds on crosscutting connections between agencies, levels of government, and the nonprofit and private sectors.”

“Green” Leadership: “Solving our environmental problems requires a blend of public policies and incentives that encourage technology and management innovations across the globe.”

Security and Privacy in a Flat World: “Security and privacy issues need to be explicitly factored into any technology decision. . . In some cases, the most efficient solution must yield to the more secure solution.”

Expect Surprises: “Policymakers will need forward-looking information to set the stage for early warnings about emerging threats and to make informed choices about effective government responses.”

photo credit: naoki.sato