Job insecurity , work-based support, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and general health of human resources professionals in a chemical industry

MA (Industrial Psychology), North-West University, Vaal Triangle CampusThe work environment in which South African employees have to function is highly demanding, offering them little in terms of job security, but simultaneously expecting them to give more in terms of inter alia flexibility, competency, and effort. Tracking and addressing chemical industry employees' functioning in areas that could affect their general health and consequent standard of service is essential. Job insecurity, work-based support, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and general health are specific focus areas in this research. It is important to use reliable and valid measuring instruments to measure these constructs. It appears that job insecurity results in reduced organisational commitment as well as reduced job satisfaction. In the long run all this may have a negative impact on the psychological well-being of employees. Therefore, the right kind of support h m the right kind of people can be of significant value in reducing occupational stress, improving health, and buffering the impact of stress on health. A lack of South African research exists regarding job insecurity, work-based support, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and general health - hence the importance of this research. The primary objective of this research was to investigate the relationship between job insecurity, work-based support, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and general health of Human Resources Professionals (N = 114) in a chemical industry. A cross-sectional survey design was used to collect data. It was found that affective and cognitive job insecurity demonstrated a statistically significant negative correlation with emotional social support (supervisor and other), but practically and statistically negative correlation with intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. With regard to affective and cognitive job insecurity and general health, a statistically significant positive correlation was obtained for somatic symptoms, social dysfunction and severe depression, and a practically and statistically significant correlation with anxiety and insomnia. Affective commitment demonstrated a statistically significant negative relationship with cognitive job insecurity. The regression analysis indicated that job insecurity has some predictive value with regard to the intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction and general health subscales, namely somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction and severe depression. With regard to the two components of job satisfaction, intrinsic and extrinsic, job insecurity predicted 14% and 5% respectively of the variance. No predictions were found between affective commitment and job insecurity. With regard to general health, job insecurity predicted 5% (somatic symptoms), 11% (anxiety and insomnia), 1 % (social dysfunction) and 8% (severe depression). Conclusions were made, limitations of the cumin research were discussed and recommendations for future research were put forward.Master