Exploring the impact of precarious work on workers and operations

Precarious working conditions can be characterized through low wages, poor protection from termination of employment, lack of access to social protection and benefits usually associated with full-time standard employment and lack of or limited access of workers to exercise their rights at work. And based on the human capital perspective and recent research it should be rare, since an unhealthy workforce cannot contribute to a firm’s competitiveness. Yet, precarious work is on the rise globally indicating a gap between the literature and practice. This research aims to make a significant contribution to the creation of a form of work that gives companies the assumed benefits of precarious work without doing harm to workers. We address the following objectives as the first steps toward that aim: (1) To research precarious work in a ground breaking multi-disciplinary fashion that accounts for all stakeholders and acknowledges that precarious work is simultaneously an issue for OM, HR and safety scholars. And (2) to understand if organizations are making a rational choice when they adopt precarious forms of work. And if so, whether there are contextual factors that determine where precarious work would be rational from a firm perspective. Data will be collected from operations and HR managers, public safety records and workers in Spain, and the UK following a standardized research design that combines surveys and secondary data. The results will help regulators design policies to discourage the use of precarious forms of work. The research will also improve the competitiveness of firms by explicating the, likely many, contexts where using precarious workers provides firms with no long-term benefits. Most importantly, the research will help those firms who do benefit from these forms of work to create workplaces that don’t harm workers.

Precarious working conditions can be characterized through low wages, poor protection from termination of employment, lack of access to social protection and benefits usually associated with full-time standard employment and lack of or limited access of workers to exercise their rights at work. And based on the human capital perspective and recent research it should be rare, since an unhealthy workforce cannot contribute to a firm’s competitiveness. Yet, precarious work is on the rise globally indicating a gap between the literature and practice. This research aims to make a significant contribution to the creation of a form of work that gives companies the assumed benefits of precarious work without doing harm to workers. We address the following objectives as the first steps toward that aim: (1) To research precarious work in a ground breaking multi-disciplinary fashion that accounts for all stakeholders and acknowledges that precarious work is simultaneously an issue for OM, HR and safety scholars. And (2) to understand if organizations are making a rational choice when they adopt precarious forms of work. And if so, whether there are contextual factors that determine where precarious work would be rational from a firm perspective. Data will be collected from operations and HR managers, public safety records and workers in Spain, and the UK following a standardized research design that combines surveys and secondary data. The results will help regulators design policies to discourage the use of precarious forms of work. The research will also improve the competitiveness of firms by explicating the, likely many, contexts where using precarious workers provides firms with no long-term benefits. Most importantly, the research will help those firms who do benefit from these forms of work to create workplaces that don’t harm workers.