Motivations of temporary agency workers and context free well-being: engagement as a mediator

Abstract

According to the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), when people choose to work voluntarily and have authentic motivations, rather than motivations regulated by external factors, they show more interest and enthusiasm that manifests in their levels of general life satisfaction (Deci & Ryan, 2000), as well as by showing a positive assessment of their general health (e.g. Stone, Deci, & Ryan, 2009). Attending to the specific case of temporary agency workers, who have a triangular employment relationship (i.e. involves three parts: temporary agency work, client company and employee) and who are most frequently characterized by less job security (e.g. DiNatale, 2001), compared to permanent workers (who have a direct and continuous employment relationship with an employer), it is particularly important observe the extent to which the relationship between motivations and workers' outcomes (like well-being at work and context free well-being levels) occurs in the sense that this theory suggests.

With a sample of 2320 temporary agency workers and through structural equations analyses, our main goal was the analyze of the relationship between motivations for being temporary agency worker and engagement – characterized as a positive mental state of well-being at work (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006). Additionally, we studied the extent to which more work engagement is associated with higher levels of context free well-being and we also analyzed the role of engagement as mediator in the relationship between motivations and this context free well-being.

The results obtained showed that, contrary to what was expected, and based on the theory of self-determination, in the particular case for temporary agency workers, the more intrinsic nature of motivations does not mean more work engagement. Therefore, we have found that integrated motivation, related to the vision of temporary work as allowing more flexibility and balance of work with other responsibilities / needs of individuals, is negatively and significantly related to less work engagement. Among the four types of motivations analyzed – intrinsic, integrated, identified and external motivation – only identified motivation was found to have a positive and significant relationship with work engagement. In that sense, when the motivation for being TAW relates to the fact that the temporary work can be seen as allowing access to a permanent employment or as enabling the development of skills that will be useful in the future, more work engagement these workers present. According to what was expected, we observed positive and significant relationships between work engagement and the two dimensions of context free well-being analyzed: satisfaction with life and health perceptions. Regarding the role of engagement as a mediator of the relationship between motivations and the two dimensions of context free well-being: engagement it is a mediator who helps to partially explain the relationship between integrated motivation and the two dimensions of context free well-being – satisfaction with life and health perceptions – as well as a mediator that seems totally explain the relationship between identified motivation and these two dimensions of context free well-being.

Generally, the results of this study suggest a differentiated role of workers' motivations in their results, highlighting the need to reflect about the HR practices and policies that should be developed with these workers, considering the particularity of their employment relationship.