Use Of Temporary Agency Workers Research Articles

Make-or-buy decisions regarding temporary agency work – an empirical analysis of the decision process and expected effects

Although the use of temporary agency work (TAW) in firms is heavily debated in the literature, the decision processes and motives behind using or not using TAW are often neglected or only analyzed in rough categories. We address these issues using a theoretical framework for HR outsourcing decisions. Specifically, we ask what triggers the decision about usage of TAW, whether firms have internal alternatives to using TAW, and what their expectations were when they made the decision. We focus on detailed expectations about the effects and analyze how users an d non-users of TAW differ in their respective expectations. Our analyses show that TAW is not a personnel service used by the majority of firms. Besides monetary costs, quality, and flexibility effects, stakeholder and transaction cost effects are relevant for the make-or-buy decisions. Users and non-users of TAW differ significantly in their expectations about some of the effect categories.

Accidents at work during temporary agency work in Finland – Comparisons between certain major industries and other industries

Accidents at work during temporary agency work (TAW) are analysed and compared with those occurring in other industries in Finland on the basis of national statistics databases. The general trend is analysed between 1998 and 2007. The years 2006–2007 are analysed in more detail. Frequency distributions and accident frequencies are calculated for data analysis. Statistically significant differences between TAW and other industries are also tested. The results suggest that the accident risk is increasing in TAW and is higher than in other industries. This might be due to increased use of TAW in traditionally accident prone industries. However, workplace accidents were not so often severe in TAW compared to other industries. The results also indicate that certain work assignments, namely manual work in production and construction, etc. are more common in TAW compared to other industries, which affects the typical kind of accidents. Differences in workplace accidents between TAW and other industries should be taken into account in accident prevention. However, further research is needed to identify the underlying accident mechanisms and their significance in order to guide accident prevention effectively. Information retrieval concerning accidents at work in TAW should continue to be made available in the future.

Explanatory factors for firms’ use of temporary agency work in Germany

Summary The use of temporary agency work is becoming more important for firms as it enables them to increase flexibility. Therefore, it is highly relevant to have a thorough understanding of the explanatory factors behind its use. Most recent literature focuses on the assumed cost effect of temporary agency work. But a few indicators show that this effect does not predominantly trigger firms’ use of temporary agency work. We support this thesis by highlighting new empirical evidence from the German market.

Help wanted? Employers' use of temporary agencies in the UK construction industry

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamics between employers' use of temporary agency workers and the aspirations of agencies to expand their role further within organisations.Design/methodology/approachThe study focuses on the construction sector in the UK. A mixed methods approach is employed comprising a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews with construction employers.FindingsConstruction employers' use of temporary agency workers remains driven by “traditional” reasons, to meet short‐term peaks in demand and for one‐off tasks. Construction employers have widespread reservations about the use of temporary agency workers. There is little evidence of an expansion in the range of tasks or managerial functions being performed by agencies in construction. Together, these findings point to limits to the inexorable expansion of temporary agencies in the sector.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research is needed to assess the extent to which these reservations surrounding agencies, and the limits on the expansion of agencies that these reservations imply, are applicable to sectors outside construction.Practical implicationsEmployers' lack of appetite for agency workers stem from perceived problems of quality of agency labour and a desire to maintain control over production. These reservations suggest that agency aspirations to increase their role and functions further in the construction sector are likely to be frustrated.Originality/valueMuch research has pointed to the growth of agency working in recent years. The principal value of this research is in highlighting the potential limits to the inexorable expansion of agency working. The paper also reveals employers' reservations towards agencies, which have been neglected in the literature to date.

Temporary Agency Work and the Business Cycle

The Netherlands leads the world in the use of temporary agency workers: in 2000 nearly 5 per cent of Dutch employees were agency workers. The use of agency workers is very sensitive to business cycle fluctuations. This paper reports on an exploration of the relation between GDP and agency work. We developed a theoretical model for the time interdependence of GDP, agency work and regular employment, and tested model predictions using a VAR model. The results show that temporary agency work leads GDP development. A positive GDP shock is followed by an increase in the use of agency work for two years, but decreased use in the three subsequent years.

The Manufacturing Industry's Product Development and the Present Use of Temporary Agency Workers

The Manufacturing Industry's Product Development and the Present Use of Temporary Agency Workers

The organization of Human Resource Management in temporary work agencies—towards a comprehensive research agenda on temporary agency work in Germany, the Netherlands and the US

While many studies suggest that companies use temporary agency work only as a short-term instrument to adjust the workforce in line with demand, recent research has pointed to new developments in employers' use of temporary agency work. Studies have highlighted the development of increasing long-term contractual relationships between temporary work agencies and client companies in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and the US. What is missing in the current debate so far are insights on how temporary work agencies are responding to new expectations by client companies. Therefore, possible strategies are analyzed with special regard to the design of Human Resource Management instruments in temporary work agencies. Although the Human Resource Management is the core competency of temporary work agencies, surprisingly little attention in the academic literature has been paid to the question how Human Resource Management should be structured in order to support the adopted strategies by the agencies. This will be analyzed in the paper with a special focus on the situation in Germany, the Netherlands and the US, developing propositions for further research and a comprehensive research agenda for international comparative studies.

Temporary Agency Work, the Changing Employment Relationship and its Impact on Human Resource Management

The increasing use of temporary agency work in Germany has implications for the nature of the employment relationship. The notion of a clearly defined employer-employee relationship becomes difficult to uphold in triangular relationships like in the case of temporary agency work where the agencies employees are working at the site of the client company. The blurring of the boundaries of organisations and of the employment relationship leads to ambiguities that affect Human Resource Management. Given the dominance of new institutional economic approaches in the analysis of temporary agency work, it is not surprising that the ambiguities and the effects and consequences of the use of temporary agency workers on the Human Resource Management of client companies have been underestimated and not been explored in detail. This paper wants to close that gap by adding a Human Resource Management perspective to the current debate in order to gain insight on the role of Human Resource Management in triangular relationships. By building on theoretical discussions and empirical studies the implications of the use of temporary agency workers for the Human Resource Management of client companies are analyzed with a special regard to commitment and identification with the client company. Different suggestions how to organize Human Resource Management instruments for temporary agency workers are presented to illustrate the value of a diverse Human Resource Management for different groups of the workforce. Key words: Temporary Agency Work, Employment Relationship, New Institutional Economics 1. Temporary agency work as an example of non-standard employment relations The notion of a clearly defined employment relationship becomes difficult to uphold as changes in the organization of work facilitated by technological improvements have blurred the boundaries between standard and non-standard employment relations. Consequently, non-standard employment relations such as temporary agency work have become increasingly prominent ways of organizing work in recent years (Nienhuser/Matiaske 2003: 467; Bothfeld/Kaiser 2003: 489; Jahn/Rudolph 2002: 1ff.). There are many different terms used in the literature to describe non-standard employment relations (Kalleberg 2000). For example, non-standard employment relations have been referred to as flexible staffing arrangements (Abraham 1988, Houseman 2001), market-mediated arrangements (Abraham 1990), flexible working practices (Brewster et al 1997) or more generally as atypical employment (Delsen 1995; De Grip et al 1997; Cordova 1986). However all definitions imply that non-standard employment departs from the standard work arrangement. Standard work arrangements are generally associated with full-time positions that are based on an indefinite contract and are performed at the employer's site under the employer's direction (Muckenberger 1985: 429; Bosch 1986: 165; Talos 1999: 417/418; Rogowski/Schomann 1996: 224ff). Though, global economic changes, increased competition and uncertainty among companies put greater pressure on them to push for greater profits and more flexible work arrangements, non-standard employment relations are not new. There have always been employment relations that did not fit the standard model of full-time work (Peck 1996). This is also true for temporary agency work that first emerged in the United States after the second World War (Mitlacher 2004: 9). As an example of a non-standard employment relation, temporary agency work involves the externalisation of administrative control and responsibility (Pfeffer/Baron 1988). Temporary work agencies employ workers and hire them out to a client company where they work at the client's premises and direction while the agency charges a fee for this service (Kalleberg 2000: 346). This creates a triangular relationship where a worker establishes connections with different companies (Bronstein 1991; Vosko 1997). The following section illustrates the recent development of the temporary work industry in Germany. …

Why Has Work Effort Become More Intense?

It is hypothesized that technological and organizational changes are an important source of work intensification, and supportive evidence is found using establishment data for Britain in the 1990s. Work intensification has also been stimulated by the use of high‐commitment human resources policies. A reduction in union power and a rise in the use of temporary agency workers and contractors were positively associated with work intensification; however, their impact during the 1990s was modest.

Dilemmas in the management of temporary work agency staff

Temporary jobs account for an increasing proportion of new engagements in the UK labour market, with temporary work agencies or 'labour market intermediaries' occupying a central role in the regulation of entry into some organisations. Such evolving arrangements have been found to have their contradictions, even for the host organisation. This article explores the internal and external pressures to use a temporary work agency as a means of recruiting labour at host organisations. It considers some of the HRM issues that stem from the use of such workers, including the tendency to devolve HRM to the managers of such agencies operating within the host organisation. Central to this article is a consideration of the potential sustainability of organisations' use of temporary agency workers, engaging with this concern from the perspective of organisational cost‐effectiveness.