scholarly journals Competence development of Temporary Agency Workers : understanding the complexities of a triangular employment relationship

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nienke Woldman
Keyword(s):  
Competence Development ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Triangular Employment Relationship ◽  
Temporary Agency Workers

scholarly journals A New Approach to Regulating Temporary Agency Work in Ontario or Back to the Future?

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah F. Vosko
Keyword(s):  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Employment Services ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Temporary Agency Work ◽  
The Future ◽  
Employment Standards ◽  
Private Employment ◽  
Temporary Help ◽  
Triangular Employment Relationship ◽  
Employment Agencies

In 2009, the province of Ontario, Canada adopted the Employment Standards Amendment Act (Temporary Help Agencies) partly in response to public concern over temporary agency workers’ limited access to labour protection. This article examines its “new” approach in historical and international context, illustrating that the resulting section of the Employment Standards Act (ESA) reflects continuity through change in its continued omissions and exclusions. The article begins by defining temporary agency work and describing its significance, explaining how it exemplifies precarious employment, partly by virtue of the triangular employment relationship at its heart. Next it traces three eras of regulation, from the early 20th to the early 21st centuries: in the first era, against the backdrop of the federal government’s forays into regulation through the Immigration Act, Ontario responded to abusive practices of private employment agencies, with strict regulations, directed especially at those placing recent immigrants in employment. In the second era, restrictions on private employment agencies were gradually loosened, resulting in modest regulation; in this era, there was growing space for the emergence of “new” types of agencies providing “employment services,” including temporary help agencies, which carved out a niche for themselves by targeting marginalized social groups, such as women. The third era was characterized by the legitimization of private employment agencies and, in particular, temporary help agencies, both in a passive sense by government inaction in response to growing complexities surrounding their operation, and in an active sense by the repeal of Ontario’s Employment Agencies Act in 2000. Despite a consultative process aimed, in the words of Ontario’s then Minister of Labour, at “enhanc [ing] protections for employees working for temporary help agencies,” the new section of the ESA adopted in 2009 reproduces outdated approaches to regulation through its omissions and exclusions; specifically, it focuses narrowly on temporary help agencies rather than including an overlapping group of private employment agencies with which they comprise the employment services industry and its denial of access to protection to workers from a particular occupational group (i.e., workers placed by a subset of homecare agencies otherwise falling within the definition of “assignment employees”). Highlighting the importance of looking back in devising new regulations, the article concludes by advancing a more promising approach for the future that would address more squarely the triangular employment relationship as the basis for extending greater protection to workers.

Discourses of Professionalism in Front-Line Service Work: Insights from a Case Study in an Italian Bank

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 829-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Carollo ◽  
Luca Solari
Keyword(s):  
Observational Data ◽  
Service Industry ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Service Work ◽  
Single Case Study ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Triangular Employment Relationship

The article draws on the literature on the triangular employment relationship in the service industry, as well as on the debate on contemporary forms of professionalism, to explore the varied uses of the discourse of professionalism in a banking company. Methodologically, it is a single-case study based on 61 semi-structured interviews, company documents and observational data. The research results show how, in the company studied, the notion of professionalism was used both by individual employees and, at the collective level, by union organizations to advance front-line employees’ and customers’ interests vis-a-vis the management. Moreover, rather than a single discourse, several discourses of professionalism coexisted within the company, and they were subject to constant debate and contestation. The article thus advances extant research on both contemporary forms of service work and professionalism, while providing a bridge between these two streams of literature which, to date, have barely talked to each other.

scholarly journals Relational Expectations and Transactional Obligations: Incompatible Psychological Contracts and Triadic Employment Relationships

SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402093267
Author(s):  
Jocelyn Handy ◽  
Dianne Gardner ◽  
Doreen Davy
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Contract ◽  
Psychological Contracts ◽  
Adverse Outcomes ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Temporary Workers ◽  
Power Bases ◽  
Employment Relationships ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Triangular Employment Relationship ◽  
Temporary Staffing

This research investigated the triangular employment relationship between organizations, temporary staffing agencies, and clerical temporary workers using the conceptual framework of the psychological contract. The rapid growth in triadic employment relationships is well documented; however, there is limited research into the interlocking psychological contracts between the three parties. This research advances our understanding of the mechanisms underlying triangular psychological contracts by drawing attention to the ways in which people’s beliefs concerning their own obligations toward others may be incommensurate with their expectations of other parties. Findings are based on semistructured interviews with 10 client organization representatives, 10 staffing agency consultants, and 20 female clerical temporaries working in Auckland, New Zealand. The interviews revealed that the three sets of participants held mutually incompatible expectations, which were shaped by their differing positions and power bases within the temporary labor market. Each group expected, or wanted, the other parties to behave toward them as if a relational psychological contract existed but perceived their obligations toward others in more transactional terms. In consequence, the expectations, goals, and actions of the three sets of participants often conflicted, creating a range of adverse outcomes, which were unintended by, and problematic for, each group within the triangular employment relationship.

scholarly journals Particularities of Temporary Work. Advantages and Vulnerabilities

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-81
Author(s):  
Maria-Cristina Bălăneasa
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Temporary Work ◽  
External Current ◽  
Temporary Employee ◽  
Legislative Framework ◽  
Work Relationship ◽  
Triangular Employment Relationship ◽  
The Relationship

Temporary work is an alternative to providing the activity and procuring external, current labor force, more and more common in the countries of the European Union, including Romania. The alternative of such work is beneficial to all parties involved in the triangular employment relationship: the temporary work agent, the temporary employee and the user of the temporary workforce. This article proposes a brief presentation of some theoretical aspects related to temporary work (the importance of temporary work in today's society, the Community and national legislative framework, the actors of the temporary work relationship and the relationship between them, such as listing the conditions and authorization of the employee temporary in Romania) followed by an analysis on the evolution of employment agents registered in Romania in the period 2007-2021.

scholarly journals Temporary Agency Workers—Precarious Workers? Perceived Job Security and Employability for Temporary Agency Workers and Client Organization Employees at a Swedish Manufacturing Plant

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Håkansson ◽  
Tommy Isidorsson
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Job Insecurity ◽  
Job Security ◽  
Competence Development ◽  
Employment Protection ◽  
Manufacturing Plant ◽  
Temporary Work ◽  
Employment Contracts ◽  
Work Tasks ◽  
Temporary Agency Workers

The vulnerable situation of temporary agency workers is manifested in previous research that evidences the job insecurity of this group. However, research shows that this insecurity is due to the temporary nature of employment contracts for this group of workers. In Sweden, where temporary agency workers have the same type of employment contracts (i.e., temporary or permanent contracts) and are entitled to the same employment protection as other groups of employees, one might expect a different picture. This article examines the situation of temporary agency workers who have the same working conditions as client organization employees. These workers have permanent contracts and are treated like client organization employees. We have chosen to examine this case because we anticipate it to be very likely to contradict statements regarding temporary agency workers’ affiliation with the precariat. This article aims to empirically elucidate the precariousness of temporary agency workers who are highly integrated with client organization employees and who share the same work tasks. Our analysis shows that competence development is crucial to perceptions of job security. However, temporary agency workers lack competence development, both on the part of the employer (the temporary work agency) and on the part of the client organization. The client organization has no incentive to invest more than the required competencies, since temporary agency workers only constitute a buffer in case of a downturn. We argue that it is the agency workers’ connection with a buffer that results in a lack of job security. Our results also show that temporary agency workers’ job security could be increased if temporary agencies were to invest in competence development for the agency workers, thus overcoming these workers’ vulnerability in constituting a buffer.

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