Temporary Working Essay -- Business, Temporary Employees

Temporary employment is becoming increasingly popular within the UK, allowing organisations to manage when they encounter staff shortages, and external and competitive pressures. Temporary workers are individuals who are employed by organisations to fulfil job roles when they are in demand. Temporary employees may work full-time or part-time, for one week or several, depending on whether or not the organisation requires their labour. Temporary working contributes to the labour problem of low productivity and low performance, this essay will considered this employment form from a number of perspectives and discover solutions to this problem. The articles will be critically evaluated weighing up opinions and arguments made by each author. Firstly a brief introduction of the profiling of the temporary workers, followed by reasons for employing temporary staff, and the benefits and drawbacks to both the employer and employee. Following the evaluation will be an analysis of each management perspective and solutions for the temporary working labour problem. Profiling Temporary Workers Kirk and Belovics (2008) suggest that a large number of individuals comply with the key characteristics of temporary workers. The most common profile of temporary employees is those individuals who are looking for flexible working arrangements or low-skilled work; women, students and immigrants. Conley (2002) agrees with Kirks and Belovics (2008) profiling of temporary workers, as studies have revealed that higher numbers of temporary contracts are held by these individuals. However, in Burgess and Connell (2006) article, Hipple and Stewart (1996) argue that the nature of temporary work has changed and is continuing to chang... ...rary employees may feel disloyal to their work, lack commitment towards the company, and harm their market share, providing reasons for these predicaments. Moreover it is clear that with the adaption of management perspectives’ within an organisation, there are solutions. If Conley (2002) was to adapt the unitarism or the pluralism perspective into the UK public sector they may find that NQTs are more likely to stay within the industry and they would receive lower annual resignation figures. However, by taking these perspectives, managers may find themselves getting too attached to employees who are there to carry out tasks and lose their right to control them. Consequently, with the adaption of the correct management perspectives and techniques to individual employees, organisations should discover effective solutions to their employee relations issues.