Introduction:
Much of the literature indicates that human capital is often the most valuable asset for an organization. A clear trend is emerging: the rise of contract work (Grant 2013). In an increasingly globalized economy, currently recovering from a serious, organizations are seeking to minimize costs to maintain competitiveness. The pursuit of minimized costs is multifaceted. One option has been to change workforce demographics from employee to contractor. For many firms workers are a key ingredient to continued success. This shift from the traditional employer/ employee relationship to an employer/contractor relationship could have broad implications for team dynamics and add a new dimension to previous organizational motivation tactics. Therefore, it is important to examine both content theories and process theories with respect to motivation and specifically the way in which it applies to the emerging trend of the contractor workforce.
Rise of the Contractor Workforce:
During the 1980s, several countries implemented labor market reforms with the intent of lowering unemployment levels by deregulating employment and promoting the use of fixed-term contracts (Amuedo-Dorantes and Malo, 2008). These employment arrangements varied from traditional permanent work assignments as they have limited benefits and eliminated dismissal costs. Contract employees are favorable from an organisational perspective as they can work as a buffer to address temporary changes in employment needs due to changes in product or project demand, or to fill vacancies on a temporary basis (Amuedo-Dorantes and Malo, 2008). Furthermore, in part fueled by the cost advantages, fixed-term contracts became widely used by firms for additional purposes, for...
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This article stated that, according to a study conducted by the United Way and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), approximately 40% of young workers in Ontario are in jobs classified as part-time, temporary or self-employed. The same study also found that less than half of part-time/temporary workers were able to transition into full-time higher-wage work and, perhaps most importantly, the percentage of those able to transition will likely decline over the next decade. Clearly, the growth of part-time and temporary jobs has been growing on an upward trend over the past decade and appears to have become part of business as usual. A study conducted in 2015 by the United Way and the Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) states that approximately 22% of part-time/temporary work in the past year can be characterized as precarious work, i.e. work with poor or no benefits and job security. The growth in precarious employment is due to many factors including Globalization, improved technology, changes to business models, and the economic shift from manufacturing to the service sector. These shifts have essentially formed a new economy that has a high demand for fluidity and flexibility in the common workplace, and has low a demand for the old fashioned “Standard” model of the workplace (largely full-time employees with a full suite of
Precarious employment is work that is not secure, generally does not include any type of benefits, and is paid so lowly that it generally does not meet the living wage. This type of employment is unfortunately a growing trend in today’s societies due to many factors such as outsourcing, globalization, a saturated job market, shifts from manufacturing to the service sector and jobs also being replaced by computerized units. When speaking on precariousness these trends also affect European societies due to the fact that the outsourcing is generally to places where labour is extremely cheap in order to lower the costs of goods such as Asia and South America. This growing trend is also resulting in negative effects on the economy such as the bottoming out of the middle class and a large amount of citizens living below the poverty line and not able to earn a livable wage. Minimum Wage is on the incline, however, it is still not enough to live on practically and there are many other factors that make precarious work disadvantageous other than the wages such as job security and room for growth and promotion within the company. The negative changes to the job market brought on by the changes to it have resulted in higher expectations and demands from the employers which reduce the amount of people which are eligible for what are now known as “good jobs”. These good jobs generally entail a livable wage, benefits, more flexibility and better job security. Precarious work is categorized and gendered as women and immigrants make up the vast majority of employees in this type of work. Since precarious work affects citizens on a global scale, in this essay, there will be comparisons and contrasts drawn between precarious work in Canada ...
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Organizations everywhere use different methods to push members of their organization to complete various tasks on a daily basis. Whether these approaches are successful or not successful, displays how effective the organization’s motivating factors really are. Motivation is an essential element that must be incorporated into every organization to ensure that goals are accomplished and so that members of the organization always stick to their mission. James Porter and Lyman Porter define motivation as “the degree and type of effort that an individual exhibits in a behavioral situation…and has to do with the direction and quality of that effort” (Perry, 2005). People often wonder what factors cause an individual to perform their job in a certain
Research has shown that motivation in an employee is an important factor which determines his performance. Motivation is the “driving force within individuals” (Mullins, 2007, p. 285). It is the concerned with finding out the reasons which shape and direct the behaviour of the individuals. The people act to achieve something so that they can satisfy some needs (Gitman and Daniel, 2008). It is important for the manager to understand this motivation of individual employees in order to inspire them and devise an appropriate set of incentives and rewards which would satisfy the needs that they have individually (Kerr, 2003). Once these needs are expected to be met in return for some specific behaviour or action, they would work more diligently to have that behaviour in them and to achieve that objective (Meyer and Hersovitch, 2001). Since it would lead to early and fuller achievement of the company objectives as the individual would work more diligently, it would lead to better organizational performance (Wiley, 1997).
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Marston, Cam. (2007). Motivating the “what’s in it for me?” workforce. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In our modern culture success is often determined by ones measure of motivation to succeed. Without motivation there would be no ends to meet, no goals to accomplish, no movement from vision to reality. Society today recognizes the term “motivation” as a single reason to take action, but what they do not know is that there are many variations of it. (Cadwallader, Bitner, & Ostrom, 2010, Pg. 220) Motivation affects us in every aspect of our everyday lives, it is what causes change. In this literature review my purpose is to research correlations between motivation and how to improve it in the workplace.
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