An analysis of the job perceptions, experiences, growth needs, and satisfactions of permanent and contingent workers

The purpose of this research project was to investigate the job perceptions of permanent full-time workers and contingent workers of an organization of a large, national telecommunications company. The Hackman and Oldham Job Characteristics survey instrument was used to assess the job perceptions of permanent and contingent workers across jobs in a particular organization, where contingent workers worked alongside permanent workers. The survey instrument has traditionally been used to calculate the motivating potential of jobs. If one or more job characteristics was found to be deficient, the instrument enabled the user to identify the appropriate area requiring improvement. Rather than use the results to improve jobs, this research was aimed at shedding some light on the similarities and differences in job perceptions of permanent and contingent workers. The research compared the job characteristics survey scores of permanent workers and contingent workers and tested the results for statistically significant differences. Tests of significance were also conducted on the following categories of data collected for the two types of workers: (1) sex, (2) age, (3) attained educational level, (4) job type, (5) job responsibility, and (6) time spent on job. Nine hypotheses were tested in this study. The basic premise of the hypotheses was that between permanent and contingent workers there would be no significant difference in any of the JDS subscales for any category being investigated. The research results were tested for significance using Student t statistics. Contrary to the hypotheses, levels of significant differences were found between permanent and contingent workers for each of the categories used to profile data. The results of the study indicate that job enrichment efforts should include an awareness of the employment category of the intended worker and should include a program of implementation and performance monitoring for greater effectiveness. The results of this study seem to indicate that the special attention devoted to contingent workers has a positive effect on the way they view their jobs. A lesson inferred from this is that managers should provide the same level of attention for their permanent workers--this may be beneficial for the workers as well as the organization