High Job Mobility Research Articles

Is no (soft) skill left behind? Do soft skills enable job mobility

ABSTRACT High job mobility or labour turnover is historically treated as detrimental for businesses and workers. With new technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) that further increase soft skill demand, there is an opportunity for beneficial job mobility of workers reallocating to productive businesses supported by transferable soft skills. However, Australian businesses risk missing these benefits as Australian workers have yet to reach pre-GFC mobility. We use the HILDA longitudinal dataset for Australia to test how the soft skill measures of communication skills, time management, and low task repetitiveness are associated with mobility for Australian workers measured using changing jobs directly and hourly wages as a measure of mobility success. The survival analysis for changing jobs finds soft skills have no significant effect on the expected employment duration prior to changing jobs, while measures of overall skills beyond soft skills increase this duration. Further, measures of soft skills and overall skills have mixed effects on wages by themselves, and when moderated with changing jobs these terms are almost completely insignificant. Overall, the potential transferability of soft skills does not translate into practical mobility, suggesting limitations for workers seeking to improve their working conditions via changing jobs.

Return to work after traumatic spinal fractures and spinal cord injuries: a retrospective cohort study

This study aimed to determine the factors associated with return to work (RTW) after traumatic spinal fracture and spinal cord injury. It provided a predictive model for RTW among patients with spinal fractures and spinal cord injury and determined important factors influencing the time to RTW after injury. A retrospective cohort study was conducted in Poursina Tertiary Hospital, Guilan, Iran between May 2017 and May 2020. Patients aged 18 to 65 who were hospitalized with traumatic spinal fractures and spinal cord injuries were included. Demographic and clinical data were collected from the National Spinal Column/Cord Injury Registry of Iran (NSCIR-IR). A researcher-administered questionnaire was used through a telephone interview to obtain complementary data on social and occupational variables. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis was used to estimate the average time to RTW and the predictors of RTW were determined by multivariate Cox regression model. Of the 300 patients included, 78.6% returned to work and the average time to RTW was about 7 months. The mean age of the participants was 45.63 ± 14.76 years old. Among the study variables, having a Bachelor’s degree (HR 2.59; 95% CI 1.16–5.77; P = 0.019), complications after injury (HR 0.47; 95% CI 0.35–0.62; P = 0.0001), full coverage health insurance (HR 1.73; 95% CI 1.10–2.72; P = 0.016), opium use (HR 0.48; 95% CI 0.26–0.90; P = 0.023), number of vertebral fractures (HR 0.82; 95% CI 0.67–0.99; P = 0.046), and length of hospital stay (HR 0.95; 95% CI 0.93–0.98; P = 0.001) were found to be significant in predicting RTW in Cox regression analysis. Our analysis showed that wealthier people and those with high job mobility returned to work later.

Role of job mobility frequency in job satisfaction changes: the mediation mechanism of job-related social capital and person‒job match

Employees’ high job mobility is detrimental to the healthy and sustainable development of enterprises. It may be resolved by identifying the internal mechanism by which job mobility is associated with job satisfaction. However, few studies have examined it clearly. Thus, decision-making in human resource management lacks a theoretical basis. The present study attempts to fill this gap from the perspective of job-related social capital and person‒job match. Using survey data from 1348 employees with a tenure of 1–3 years in information service enterprises in China, this study conducts an empirical analysis of the aforementioned relationships. The results show that, in the context of the high frequency of job mobility, the ‘Honeymoon Effect’ has a positive association with job satisfaction in the short term. In the long term, the frequency of job mobility has a negative indirect association with job satisfaction through person‒job match and job-related social capital. Among these mediation mechanisms, job-related social capital has a positive association with person‒job match, which contributes to and strengthens the aforementioned negative intermediary process. The results highlight the positive role of job mobility frequency on job satisfaction in the short term and the negative role in the long term. The findings provide useful references and suggestions to help individuals improve their job satisfaction and enterprises to formulate efficient human resource management strategies.

Leaving and staying with the employer\u2014Changes in work, health, and work ability among older workers

ObjectiveThe aim of this prospective study was to examine employer changes among older workers and to relate them to psychosocial work factors, health, and work ability. Four groups of employees as elaborated by Hom et al. (2012) were distinguished: Enthusiastic leavers (EL), reluctant leavers (RL), enthusiastic stayers (ES), and reluctant stayers (RS).MethodsRepeated Measures ANOVA analyses were based on data from the second and third waves (2014, 2018) of the German lidA Cohort Study, a representative study of employees born in 1959 or 1965.ResultsThe largest proportion of participants was ES (73.3%), 13.2% stayed with their employer although they would have preferred to leave (RS). 7.1% changed employer between 2014 and 2018 voluntarily (EL), 6.4% involuntarily (RL). Analyses confirmed that the four groups already differed in 2014 in terms of health, work ability, and psychosocial work factors and that these outcomes change in different characteristic patterns over time. Most outcomes improved substantially following the change among EL. RS already reported poor outcomes in 2014 and exhibited a further deterioration while staying at the undesired workplace.ConclusionOur findings indicate that an employer change is followed by improvements of work, health, and work ability. We conclude that an inclusive labor market policy for older workers allowing for high job mobility may have the potential to contribute to considerable improvements of workers’ individual working conditions, health, and work ability, thereby increasing the work participation. Also, the considerable group of RL requires increased political and scientific attention.

Flexible Labors: The Work Mobility of Female Sex Workers (FSWs) in Post-Socialist China

This paper examines the flexible labor of Chinese female sex workers (FSWs) by looking at their job mobility. We show the women's flexible job mobility as an active strategy in addition to a direct response to the marketplace. Drawing upon in-depth interview data (n=175) during twenty-six months of ethnographic fieldwork in post-socialist China, we demonstrate the workers' spatial mobility (i.e., holding jobs in multiple locations) and temporal mobility (i.e., changing jobs frequently), which are critical features of the women's lived experiences. Our analysis shows that the women in the sex trade have high job mobility and that their multiple occupations include a wide range of work – from sex work to formal sectors. Their high job mobility stems from inventive negotiation that generates greater profits, increased stability, and reputational advantages. The findings pose three distinct challenges to the way sex work in China has been portrayed: (1) female sex workers can be excluded from the “general population”; (2) female sex workers can be labeled as a member of a particular sex worker category; and (3) the exclusive categorization between “commercial sex work” (e.g., xiaojie or prostitutes) and “transactional sex” (e.g., ernai or “second wife.”) The research demonstrates the strong agency of female sex workers even within adverse structural restraints, which contributes to existing discussions of whether sex work is voluntary or coerced.

Integrating Herzberg and Social Exchange Theories to Underpinned Human Resource Practices, Leadership Style and Employee Retention in Health Sector

The focus of this review study compliments the ongoing debate on the significance of employee retention in both private and public organizations. The contributions from scholars in retention study are enormous but there are still areas that need deep attention and further exploration. Most of the past studies on employee retention have mainly focus on its impact on outcomes such organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. Thus, to further reconfirm the importance of employee retention as a critical determinant of organizational effectiveness, it is essential to test its effect on a broader range of outcome variables. In this study, the role of human resources practices and leadership style are examined to see their effect on employee retention. While most of the extant literature used behavioral theories, this study combined Herzberg two factors (satisfier/motivator and dissatisfier/hygiene) and proposed a symbiotic relationship that could benefit both parties through social exchange theory. This study is limited in scope and context but the contribution to frontier of knowledge for both theory and practice is unparalleled. Health sector employee are limited in number due to duration of course of study and academic rigors involved, thus the limited numbers available are in competitive demand thereby encouraging high job mobility in this sector. Jordanian work force generally aspires to move to the West as ditto most developing countries. Using a well-defined HR practices coupled with leadership style will drastically reduce attrition rate and enhanced employee retention as conceptualized in this study. This will contribute to theory and practice through proactive measures that will not only discourage employee turnover but also enhance productivity.

Generation Y-Turnover: A Complementary Fit Perspective

Generation Y becomes the main pillar of workforce around the world. This generation enters the workplace with different values and characteristics from their counterparts of other generational workforces. In Malaysia, generation Y employees are well known of their high job mobility. Human resource managers are in dilemma of how to retain this new workforce? This paper serves the purpose to respond to such queries by investigating the factors contributing to Generation Y employees’ Turnover from a complementary fit perspective. This study was conducted in Malaysian Business Process Outsourcing Sector (PBO). The total sample was comprised of 318 respondents belong to generation Y employees. The data was analysed in Amos using two steps approach. Extrinsic, freedom and demand abilities fit were the predictors of Generation Y employees’ intention to quit in Malaysian BPO sector.Using cross sectional method limits our understanding to whether the predictors of turnover intention were due to career effects or generational effects. This study provides empirical evidences to Malaysian HR Managers to what makes generation Y employees leave the organization. This is a better surrogate of the existed anecdotal information. Furthermore, this study informs HR Managers that stereotyping the findings from Western context may be treated with caution.

Generation Y-Turnover: A Complementary Fit Perspective

Generation Y becomes the main pillar of workforce around the world. This generation enters the workplace with different values and characteristics from their counterparts of other generational workforces. In Malaysia, generation Y employees are well known of their high job mobility. Human resource managers are in dilemma of how to retain this new workforce? This paper serves the purpose to respond to such queries by investigating the factors contributing to Generation Y employees’ Turnover from a complementary fit perspective. This study was conducted in Malaysian Business Process Outsourcing Sector (PBO). The total sample was comprised of 318 respondents belong to generation Y employees. The data was analysed in Amos using two steps approach. Extrinsic, freedom and demand abilities fit were the predictors of Generation Y employees’ intention to quit in Malaysian BPO sector.Using cross sectional method limits our understanding to whether the predictors of turnover intention were due to career effects or generational effects. This study provides empirical evidences to Malaysian HR Managers to what makes generation Y employees leave the organization. This is a better surrogate of the existed anecdotal information. Furthermore, this study informs HR Managers that stereotyping the findings from Western context may be treated with caution.

Responses to normative and norm-violating behavior: Culture, job mobility, and social inclusion and exclusion

Research has demonstrated the effects of culture and mobility on the utilization of monetary rewards and punishments in response to norm-related behaviors (e.g., honesty and dishonesty), but less is known about their effects on the utilization of social inclusion and exclusion. Three experiments found that individuals in high job mobility contexts were more likely to exclude dishonest actors than those in low mobility contexts; job mobility did not affect the level of social inclusion. Experiment 1 demonstrated cultural differences in the utilization of social inclusion/exclusion versus monetary rewards/punishments, with perceived job mobility as an underlying mechanism. Experiment 2 provided a behavioral measure of social inclusion/exclusion. Experiment 3 manipulated job mobility and found that the perceived difficulty of social exclusion mediated the relationship between job mobility and social exclusion. This paper illustrates critical boundary conditions for past findings and provides insight into responses to norm-related behavior across different cultures.

Job Mobility and Skill Transferability - Some Evidences from Denmark and a Large Italian Region

This paper investigates the effect of job mobility and tenure on wage dynamics. In this respect, theory assesses that high job mobility and low tenure are associated to lower wage drop when workers experience a job change. We test this theory first comparing two labour market (i.e. Denmark and a large Italian region, Veneto) characterized by different job mobility and tenure, as a consequence of different level of EPL. Secondly, we perform a within Veneto analysis, comparing the different effects when workers are employed in small rather than big firms. Data drawn from the VWH (Veneto Workers History) and IDA (for Denmark) registered data, from 1987 to 2001, are used. In Denmark job mobility has a positive effect on wage increases, while built up on firm-specific human capital has a negative effect. In Veneto, instead, it appears that long tenure are more rewarding. Some evidences of positive impact of moving from job to job when the barriers are lower come from the analysis of the differences between small and big firms in Veneto.

Image and the impact of public affairs management on internal stakeholders

AbstractThis paper examines both the direct and indirect effects of images of corporate social performance on internal stakeholders. The authors suggest that public affairs managers must be particularly concerned about the ways in which images that are intended for and projected at external stakeholders are reflected back to internal stakeholders. In this new era of extremely tight labour markets, minimal corporate loyalty and high job mobility, public affairs efforts will increasingly impact upon a firm's employees. By monitoring this process, managers may more quickly identify the moment when internal stakeholders have developed a perception that differs from their original intent. This will allow managers to make a better job of maintaining a consistent image of the firm both inside and outside, and of managing the culture of the firm and its key human resources. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications

Succession planning in a fast‐changing world

Two things happen every time an employee retires, is made redundant or leaves to join another company. The experience acquired at the company’s considerable expense literally walks out of the door and the company has to replace the individual, often from outside. For organizations, job change, which has always been continuous, has been accelerating over the past decade as individuals switch their employer every six years. Even though most professionally managed companies run induction courses, most new managers will readily admit that the components that most inhibit their early passage to full productivity relate to understanding and accommodating their new employer’s individual corporate culture, management and communication styles, and the detail of recent events. Because of the difficulties of imparting such information, companies generally leave individuals to assimilate these intangibles as best they can, usually by osmosis. The evidence suggests that it can take 12 months ‐ and often much longer ‐ to become fully productive. Lack of continuity has an insidious effect on productivity and competitiveness. Outlines a cost‐effective solution to high job mobility.

Job Rotation and Public Policy: Theory with Applications to Japan and the USA

Argues that the high job mobility observed most prominently among workers in Japanese firms is consistent with the behaviour of risk‐averse individuals when neither private nor public income insurance is widely available to displaced workers. Laissez faire is suboptimal and involves higher job mobility than is socially optimal. Public provision of income insurance yields a Pareto improvement and reduces job rotation. Government job training schemes may push rotation levels even higher than the levels under laissez faire and could, therefore, be counterproductive.

Relation between job mobility during working life and health state after retirement: a cross sectional study of 627 subjects living in the Paris area.

The relation between job mobility during working life and health state after retirement was studied in a random sample of 627 retired men and women living in the Paris area who were beneficiaries of an interprofessional supplementary pension fund. State of health was evaluated by the number of health impairments that these subjects reported at the time of interview. Job mobility was defined by a dichotomic variable based on the number of different companies and branches of economic activity in which the subjects had worked. This information was obtained from the individual records supplied by the pension fund. For both sexes, a significant relation was found between the number of health impairments and job mobility: for men, the mean number of impairments was 1.7 in the high mobility group and 1.3 in the low mobility group, and for women these numbers were respectively 2.1 and 1.7. This finding seemed independent of the effects of selection and of the effects of factors such as age at the time of interview, age at retirement, previous diseases, past work accidents, and previous occupational exposures. These results suggest that a high job mobility during working life might be a risk factor for health after retirement.

High job mobility

High job mobility

The status and prospects of urban trees in Hong Kong

The status and prospects of urban trees in Hong Kong are evaluated with information gathered from questionnaires and a tree survey. Planting and maintenance responsibilities fall to four government departments plus the private sector. Species composition is unevenly distributed, with five popular species constituting over half of the trees sampled. The numbers of introduced and cultivated trees far exceed those of native and voluntary ones. Species-selection without an evaluation programme is generally conservative, but gradual shifts in preference are discernible. The multifarious physical constraints in both the above-ground and subterranean environments that pose stringent limits on the number of potential planting sites and the growth of existing trees are elaborated. Typhoons, which could periodically cause widespread damage, often regardless of species and location, could only be partially mitigated by more comprehensive preventive measures. Pests and diseases which have not received detailed study are apparently mild. Vandalism, which damages roughly 10–15% of trees planted, could be alleviated by planting more heavy standard trees, but their supply is limited because of inadequate nursery space. The chronic shortage of tree staff aggravated by a high job mobility, due mainly to comparatively low remuneration and poor promotion prospects, creates a bottleneck in the tree programme. For the future, a city-wide tree survey together with a computer database are essential for efficient management, maintenance and research. The existing, rather lax statutory control should be consolidated and tightened, with authority being given to a single department which should be adequately supported by supervisory staff. Land could be zoned specifically, like other land-uses, for tree planting, and this could be more generous and spatially more evenly distributed to allow penetration of greenery into wider parts of the city. The potential in urban renewal areas where land could be released and reserved for planting should be realized as far as possible. Overall, rising aspirations for better environmental quality could be achieved by a combination of high-density vertical developments and strategically situated open spaces liberally adorned by landscape planting.

Job Mobility and Drug Use: An Event History Analysis

Life and drug histories collected in a longitudinal cohort of young adults age 24-25 are analyzed to specify the dynamic relationships between patterns of drug use and job separations. Three patterns of drug use are investigated: daily alcohol use, monthly use of marijuana, and monthly use of other illicit drugs. Job changes followed immediately by another job are distinghished from job losses not followed by new employment within a month. Two processes assumed to underlie the relationship between drug use and job mobility are distinguished: selection, in which individual predispositions account the self-selection into job separation, and causation, which reflects the specific effects of drug use on job separation. Drug use has a strong effect on job separation, which appears to be mainly a selection effect, however. The results document the importance of drug use in predicting high job mobility and subsequent unemployment in late adolescence and early adulthood. The neglect of this life-style factor in prior analyses has led to overestimations of the negative effects of job duration and marital status and the positive effect of prior experience of a job separation on future separations.