Job preferences as revealed by employee-initiated job changes

Many previous studies try to discover job preferences by directly asking individuals. Since it is not sure whether answers to these surveys are relevant for actual behaviour, this empirical examination offers a new approach based on representative German data. Employees who quit their job and find a new one compare the two jobs with respect to eight job characteristics: type of work, pay, chances of promotion, work load, commuting time, work hour regulations, fringe benefits and security against loss of job. It is argued that the observation of many improvements (and few declines) for a certain attribute indicates a particular relevance and high preference for this attribute. It turns out that pay and type of work are most important for employees in this sense. Differences across subgroups of employees with respect to individual characteristics, such as sex and age, are explored. Those between East and West Germany diminish over time.     

Access to training and its impact on temporary workers

Does temporary work provide a way for individuals to improve their skill levels? Using a sample of more than 4,000 employees of US temporary staffing agencies, we analyse whether blue, white and pink‐collar temps get access to company training, and the impact of skill development on wages and employee retention. We find that less than 25 per cent of temps take part in training. Educated and experienced individuals are more likely to be offered training, but lower‐skilled individuals are more likely to take training when it is offered and spend more hours on it. Office workers who took part in training were more likely still to be with the agency a year later and experienced significant wage growth, while training had no effect on wage growth for blue‐collar workers. Skill development that took place on the job was associated with greater wage growth for all types of temps.     

Analysis of job‐training effects on Korean women

We analyse job‐training effects on Korean women for the period January 1999 to March 2000, using a large data set of size about 52,000. We employ a number of estimation techniques: Weibull MLE and accelerated failure time approach, which are both parametric; Cox partial likelihood estimator, which is semiparametric; and two pair‐matching estimators, which are in essence nonparametric. All of these methods gave the common conclusion that job training for Korean women increased their unemployment duration. The trainings were not cost‐effective in the sense that they took too much time ‘locking in’ the trainees during the training span, compared with the time they took to place the trainees afterwards. Despite this negative finding, some sub‐groups had positive effects: white‐collar workers trained for finance/insurance or information/communication. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reshaping internal labour markets in the National Health Service: new prospects for pay and training for lower skilled service workers?

This article considers how two new strategies for improving pay and skills development have been used in the UK National Health Service (NHS) to develop labour capacity and capability by stimulating the development of relatively coherent internal labour markets for workers at the lower end of the occupational hierarchy. Drawing on data from 13 NHS trusts, we scrutinise the implications of the new national pay system, Agenda for Change, for healthcare assistants and cleaners and find substantial one‐off improvements in pay for these groups as a direct result of the new national pay framework. However, the detailed case‐study data reveal there is considerable uncertainty regarding the extent, depth and durability of pay improvements. In particular, opportunities for pay progression in reward for acquisition of new skills and qualifications were more variable as a result of the stronger role of management choice and strategy at the organisational level in implementing the new national strategy for skills development, the Skills Escalator. Moreover, management strategy shaped the demand for, and distribution of, intermediate‐level skills (through new job design, for example), which was critical to the effectiveness of trusts in pulling lower grade employees up through an internal career trajectory.     

The Lure of Work‐Life Benefits: Perceived Person‐Organization Fit As A Mechanism Explaining Job Seeker Attraction To Organizations

Drawing from person‐organization (P‐O) fit theory, we explain how the provision of work‐life benefits (WLBs) increases job seeker attraction to organizations during the early recruitment stage because of a perceived value fit between job seekers and the organization. Our results from an experimental study using a sample of 189 MBA students who belonged to two generational groups (Millennials and Gen Xers) and were seeking employment during a period of economic recession support our expectations. We found that job seekers develop higher P‐O fit perceptions for organizations that supplement standard pay with WLBs in their recruitment materials compared with organizations that supplement standard pay with health care benefits or offer only standard pay. In turn, such organizations are assessed as more attractive prospective employers. We also found that generational group moderated the path between P‐O fit and job seeker attraction such that Millennial job seekers were more likely to be attracted toward organizations with which they had strong fit perceptions than their Gen X counterparts. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How to close the gender pay gap in Europe: towards the gender mainstreaming of pay policy

The European Employment Strategy includes a new commitment to a substantial reduction in the gender pay gap in European Union (EU) member states, but progress requires a radical shift away from the traditional policy emphasis on the supply‐side deficiencies of women compared with men. Mainstream theory argues that gender inequality is reduced once the pay gap is ‘adjusted’ for differences in individual characteristics (education, experience, etc.). But new empirical studies in many EU member states demonstrate that the work environment—the general wage structure, job and workplace characteristics—shapes gender pay inequality. Given the negative gender impact of trend declines in minimum wages, moves towards more decentralisation of wage‐setting and public sector restructuring, the article argues for a holistic, gender mainstreaming approach to pay policy.     

因素计点法事务类岗位评价体系有效性研究

薪酬的内部公平性对于保证员工工作的积极性,以及公司内部氛围的和谐有着重要的作用.岗位评价是建立一个具有内部公平性的薪酬体系的基础,而因素计点法是目前被广泛使用的岗位评价工具.本文针对具体企业的岗位评价和薪酬体系的现状,深入研究了因素计点法的应用过程.采用了问卷调查和统计分析的方法确定评价因素,重点介绍了改进的层次分析法在因素权重确定中的应用,并提出通过标杆企业的岗位相对价值排序来验证评价结果,最终构建了符合事务类岗位特点的评价体系和薪酬体系.本文采用的方法和数据均在具体企业实践中得到了验证,充分证实了岗位评价体系的有效性.     

U.S. Pay Equity Legislation: Sheep in Wolves' Clothing

In the last century, women in the United States have made tremendous changes to their labor market behavior. What has not changed very much over this time period is the relative economic status of women compared to men. Another constant has been a high level of job segregation by gender, such that few organizations employ both men and women to do a particular job. These facts have led many scholars to conclude that employers systematically undervalue female-dominated jobs, and that legislative initiatives are needed to rectify this problem. This paper reviews 4 bills that have been introduced in the U.S. Congress. Each of these bills contains loopholes that would allow most employers to maintain their current pay rates. The Congressional initiatives are contrasted with a much more stringent bill that has been introduced in the New York state legislature.     

Neighborhood Revitalization and New Life: A Land Value Taxation Approach

When a neighborhood declines, the poor get poorer, crime rises, and those who can leave the area. The tax base shrinks, so the rates paid by those least able to pay increase. The prevailing system of a low tax on land values leads to land speculation and private land banking, assuring that the landowner can hold out for a very high price for a very long time. A higher tax on land values (coupled with reduction in building taxes) creates an incentive to sell that land or do something with it rather than waiting. In cities that use land‐value taxes, real‐estate markets start to work again and neighborhoods recover. Clairton, Pennsylvania's adoption of a land‐value‐taxation system demonstrates the neighborhood revitalization to which it leads, as owner‐occupied residences and multi‐family units saw a relief in their tax burden. In contrast, vacant properties' contribution to the city budget tripled, providing the resources to pay for the education of Clairton's children and liberate working and middle‐class families from the bonds of labor and capital taxation.     

Fits,misfits and interactions: learning at work,job satisfaction and job‐related well‐being

The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm has focused attention on the importance of aligning employees' needs with the requirements of the jobs they do. This article focuses on how these needs and requirements interact in terms of learning. It does so in two ways. First, it develops new survey instruments to capture the learning demands of jobs and the learning dispositions of workers and uses them for the first time in a survey of 2,810 employees. Second, it examines how these person and job characteristics correlate with specific aspects of job satisfaction and job‐related well‐being. The results show that although learning alignment is associated with high levels of satisfaction and well‐being, not all learning misalignments are associated with the reverse.     

Toward an integrated model of applicant reactions and job choice

Previous research on applicant reactions to selection procedures has mainly emphasized the importance of procedural justice. However, much of this work has not examined other applicant reaction mechanisms (such as signals and expectancy) or additional variables known to influence job choice (e.g. pay, location and marketability). In contrast, this longitudinal field study took these other mechanisms and variables into account through the examination of the job choice processes of 588 applicants located in Canada to 215 organizations. Structural equation modelling was used to test an integrated model combining the three mechanisms of procedural justice, signals and expectancy, controlling for pay, location, and marketability. Support was found for signal and expectancy mechanisms influencing applicant intentions and job choice, and these effects were stronger for applicants with multiple opportunities and less pre-interview knowledge of the organization.     

Merit pay preferences among public sector employees

Organisations have choices about methods of pay, and employee pay adjustment preferences are an important consideration in this decision‐making process. Of particular organisational interest currently are pay systems that seek to link increases with individual performance, usually referred to as merit pay. Researchers have shown that pay adjustment systems that are incompatible with employee preferences can be costly for organisations, and have identified a range of demographic factors that predict support for merit adjustments. This article extends this line of research by investigating the impact of a performance appraisal system and a range of situational factors on the level of support for merit pay in a large public sector research organisation in Australia. The study finds that higher levels of perceived job security are associated with support for merit pay, while good promotional opportunities are associated with lower levels of support. Those who saw the outcomes of the current performance appraisal system as fair were unlikely to support merit pay.     

Unions and the economic basis of attitudes

Unions make differences to employee satisfaction that correspond to their effects on individual economic advantage. Panel data reveal how changes in economic circumstance and changes in job satisfaction are linked to changes in union coverage. When individuals move into a union covered job they receive a wage mark‐up and express enhanced pay satisfaction. Conversely, those moving from a union covered job on average lose any mark‐up and have significantly reduced satisfaction. Similar findings emerge for working hours. On average individuals prefer shorter hours, something they tend (not) to achieve on moving (out of) into a unionised job, resulting in higher (lower) satisfaction. Switching into union coverage lowers satisfaction with job security, even though coverage has no effect on the risk of unemployment. This is because covered employees suffer greater costs of re‐employment for a given level of unemployment risk, partly because of loss of the union mark‐up.     

Pay‐Level Satisfaction and Employee Outcomes: The Moderating Effect of Employee‐Involvement Climate

The present study examined employee‐involvement climate (i.e., information‐sharing and decision‐making climate) as a moderator of the relationship between pay‐level satisfaction and employee outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, affective commitment, and turnover intention). Survey data were collected from 22,662 Belgian employees, representing 134 organizations. The hypotheses derived from distributive justice theory and from research on the meaning of pay received partial support. Multilevel analyses revealed that a decision‐making climate buffered the negative effects of low pay‐level satisfaction, and that an information‐sharing climate exacerbated the negative effects of low pay‐level satisfaction. Theoretical and practical implications of this differential moderating effect are discussed.     

Shareholder Activism and Earnings Management Incentives: An Empirical Examination of Shareholder Proposals in the United States

In this article, we investigate the effect of shareholder activism on earnings management. Using a US sample of shareholder pay‐for‐performance proposals sponsored by institutional investors, we find that when compared to control firms, firms targeted by shareholder proposals have a greater magnitude of discretionary accruals (DA) in their reported earnings. In addition, we find that the likelihood of meeting or beating earnings benchmarks through the use of DA is higher for targeted firms whose managers have job security concerns due to the firms’ inferior stock performance in the past or have plans to sell company stock. Our results are consistent with the notion that pay‐for‐performance proposals have unintended consequences by introducing or exacerbating incentives to manage earnings for short‐term gains. The results also indicate that, for financial reporting, the short‐termism effect may dominate the alignment and/or disciplinary effect of shareholder monitoring.     

The job stress–job performance relationship in the social service encounter

• The current study empirically examines job performance by considering perceived customer demands as a new antecedent of job stress (JS) and the mediating role of emotion‐focused coping (EFC) on the relationship of JS and physical consequences (PC), and in‐turn job performance. A mailed survey that solicited 2500 social service providers working in the United States rendered a useable random sample of 533. Regression analyses supported the hypothesized relationships. Findings suggest that emotions play an important role in the quality of the social service encounter evidenced by the mediating role of EFC in the relationship between JS and job performance. The introduction of an intervening variable (i.e., EFC) in the JS–job performance relationship extends affective event theory (AET). The findings offer management new insights into the service encounter by identifying a source of JS that creates barriers to value added benefit creation.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reducing burnout in call centers through HR practices

Previous research on call centers has demonstrated that human resource (HR) practices can be related to employee stress; however, these studies did not examine the linking mechanisms underlying these associations. Using the job demands–control (JD‐C) model as a theoretical framework, we examine perceived job demands (namely, emotional dissonance and quantitative demands) and autonomy as potential mediators in the relationship between HR systems and burnout (exhaustion and cynicism). We distinguish between HR control systems, which include performance monitoring practices, and HR involvement systems, which include training, participation, and performance‐related pay. This study samples 811 employees working in 11 call centers. Our findings support the idea that HR systems can help reduce burnout in call centers by verifying that HR control systems associated with more emotional dissonance and less autonomy increase burnout. On the other hand, an HR involvement system decreases workers' burnout because it alleviates the job demands of emotional dissonance and quantitative demands. This study fills a gap in the literature between HR systems and burnout by demonstrating the role job demands and autonomy play in explaining how HR systems improve or decrease workers' exhaustion and cynicism. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Does contingent pay encourage positive employee attitudes and intensify work?

This article explores the relationships between three dimensions of contingent pay – performance‐related pay, profit‐related pay and employee share‐ownership – and positive employee attitudes (job satisfaction, employee commitment and trust in management). The article also examines a conflicting argument that contingent pay may intensify work, and this can detract from its positive impact on employee attitudes. Of the three contingent pay dimensions, only performance‐related pay had direct positive relationships with all three employee attitudes. Profit‐related pay and employee share‐ownership had a mix of negative and no significant direct relationships with employee attitudes, but profit‐related pay showed U‐shaped curvilinear relationships with all three employee attitudes. The results also indicated that performance‐related pay is associated with work intensification, and this offsets some of its positive impact on employee attitudes.     

体验式教育在高校就业指导工作中的应用

高校毕业生就业难已成为当今社会的热点话题。体验式教育是一种通过“在做中学”使受教育者产生情感共鸣,进而达到心灵认知的教育模式。文章结合就业指导中的模拟招聘系列活动,分析了当前高校就业指导工作的现状,阐述了体验式教育在高校就业指导工作中的重要意义,并就如何在高校就业指导工作中开展体验式教育活动进行了探讨。     

Sex discrimination in selection and compensation in Taiwan

This article describes the current status of women in the workplace in Taiwan. Statistical evidence shows sex segregation in the labour market. Discriminatory practices in the hiring process are documented via a content analysis of 7,037 classified ads. Overtly discriminatory actions, such as blatantly stated gender requirements in the classified ads, are shown to be still common in hiring practices. Census data on a gender gap in compensation shows that women in Taiwan evidently get less pay than men do for the same work. The ratio of female to male employees is significantly and negatively correlated with the ratio of female to male in pay. The higher the percentages of women in an industry, the lower the pay women get compared to men. Also, the ratio of female to male in pay is negatively related to the turnover rate. Companies that pay women fairly tend to enjoy lower turnover rates. The implications of these women's issues in human resource management in Taiwan are presented.