Posted: February 1st, 2023

The effect of mismatch between the preferred and actual working hours on affective commitment in domiciliary care sector between the distinct employee groups

Introduction

Companies delivering domiciliary care (DC) are facing highest rates of staff turnover in the Health and Social Care (HSC) sector Skills for Care (SC) study (2013) reveals. SC declared that retention of the staff members is one of the biggest issues in this sector that has a negative effect on the business based on studies that show positive correlation between both staff turnover and recruitment expenses and staff retention and the quality of care and satisfaction of the service users (Hewitt and Larson, 2007). In order to succeed in this highly competitive sector with an 18,000 organisations estimated in England (NMDS, 2015), development and implementation of a HR policies that would increase levels of the retention is a key.

Over the last few decades many studies were carried out in order to identify the factors that contribute to positive perceptions of the job that finally lead to staff retention. Results suggested that in sectors offering relatively low salaries, complex and demanding responsibilities such as DC (Webb and Carpenter, 2012), attention should be paid on HR practices that increase staff commitment (Becker, 1960, Meyer and Allen, 1991, Meyer and Allen, 1997, Van Emmerik and Sanders, 2005).

There is a big body of the research analysing various determinants affecting the commitment, one of them being work schedules (Van Echtelt et al., 2006, Reynolds, 2003, Craig and Powell, 2011) that have shift during the last few decades, i.e more often employers and employees agree on non-standard work schedules (Craig and Powell, 2011) as a result of flexible working legislation and changing demands of the markets, Due to the nature of HSC sector (i.e. type of the contract, 24/7 service and service level demands fluctuations related to the deaths of service users and new care packages) non-standard work shifts enables HSC companies to meet those demands that are mostly achieved through the use of the controversially evaluated zero hours contracts (ZHC) with an estimated 307,000 care workers on such contracts (National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) report (2015)). Despite the results of recent CIPD survey (December, 2015) revealing that the majority ZHC employees are satisfied with the job (65%) and work-life balance (62%), this contract is usually characterised as offering low-quality work with no job security, reflecting back on the legal definition introduced by Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, there it is stressed that ZHC do not guarantee any hours of work, thus do not guarantee incomes. Although the CIPD study (2015) highlights that the type of the contract does not necessarily affect employee perceptions, however it is important to acknowledge that work conditions under ZHC may lead to a mismatch between preferred and actual work hours (CIPD (2015) reveals that 22% of ZHC employees would like to work more hours), which can damage psychological contract (PC) and create a negative employee perception of the company, affect commitment and prompt intensions to leave. Since securing a stable workforce is crucial for today’s HSC market (Vanaki and Vagharseyyedin, 2009) in order to avoid negative effects in given context of DC, it is important to investigate to what extent such mismatch affects employee commitment.

Literature Review

Organisational commitment (OC) has been one of the main topics for critical reviews and research since few decades as an important factor that influences certain employee behaviour at work. For a long period there was no consensus in definition as authors approached OC from different perceptions and attached various attributes to it, which made it impossible to systematise, synthesise and compare the results of various research related to this topic thus hard to apply in practice any HR activity suggested by these outcomes. Meyer and Allen (1991) also criticized the precision of the methodology applied while testing various OC approaches, such as Mowday’s Attitudinal and Behavioural Perspectives ad Becker’s side-bet theory (Meyer and Allen, 1991), and proposed their own concept of commitment, which became a dominant psychological OC model between the recent researches when testing OC (Solinger et al., 2008). They summarised the outcomes of different studies on commitment and incorporated three different dimensions: affective, normative and continuance commitment (Meyer and Allen,1991; Solinger et al.,2008) that is a comprehensive overview of three general themes on OC seen in the earlier research respectively. Meyer and Allen raised the need to approach these three dimensions as components rather than types of OC and this is where the name of this module derived: A Three-Component Model (TCM).

Affective commitment refers to employees’ identification with the company, that can be specified by the emotional attachment (Solinger et al., 2008) which means that employee retains in the company because he/she genuinely wants to stay there (Meyer and Allen, 1991). Continuance commitment introduce the factor of the costs of leaving the organisation, that employees estimates and this component defers from AC with a raised need to stay (Meyer and Allen, 1991). Employee may not necessarily want to stay, however needs to if the cost of leaving is too high. Normative component of TCM introduces a feeling that remaining is a must. Reflecting on the concepts of these components, it is clear that AC is the only free-will commitment, where other two are imposed by one or the other factor and this is the most obvious difference between TCM components.

Although it has been argued that Meyer and Allen’s (1991) model is lacking generalisability since it has been developed testing US labour market (Jaros, 2007) and that it has been based on the study of the traditional work schedule full-time employees only (Dawley et al. 2005), other models developed after the TCM, i.e. a Job Embeddedness (Lee et al., 2004) and Psychological Collectivism ( Jackson et al., 2006), failed to predict emotional linkages and OC respectively. On the other hand some of the TCM critics (e.g. Ko et al., 1997; Lee and Chulgen, 2005; Bergman, 2006) are based on strong empirical evidences that enabled later researchers interrogate the value and propriety of the second and third TCM components due to a strong correlation between the normative and affective commitments and no correlation between continuance and affective commitment (AC)(Ko et al., 1997, Solinger et al., 2008). Therefore for the purpose of this research only the AC component will be assessed. Decision is also based on a fact that in a number of studies AC has been stressed as a valid and strongest determinant of employees’ loyalty and retention (Meyer and Allen, 1991; Meyer and Allen, 1997; Rhoades et al., 2001; Cohen, 2003) and emphasises the psychological factor that triggers the perception of the company and employee free-will decision to stay. Moreover, Mayer and Allen’s (1997) highlight employees’ needs as determinants of this TCM component: “employees will develop AC to an organisation to the extent it satisfies their needs, meets their expectations, and allows them to achieve their goals”. (p.50). This refers to the fulfilment of PC. Many different definitions of PC can be found in the literature, however the dominating approach is:

“Psychological contract expresses the combination of beliefs held by an individual and his or her employer about what they expect of one another. It can be described as the set of reciprocal but unarticulated expectations that exist between individual employees and their employers when an employee perceives that the contribution she makes obligates her employer to reciprocate”. (Armstrong, 2006, p 225).

When PC is fulfilled employee feels more satisfied with their work and hence more committed too. In addition, Van Emmerik and Sanders (2005) refers to the unmet expectations as the cause of the adverse job attitudes- negative affect on AC.

Changing working culture, demands and requirements of the markets, unstoppable changes in technology, globalisation, changes in customers and employees’ perceptions and needs are encouraging employers to adopt new approach to HRM (Skorstad and Ramsdal, 2009) by introducing new strategies, policies and procedures that results in changes in working conditions, including flexible working patterns and non-standard works schedules(i.e. evenings, nights and weekends) (Craig and Powell, 2011) to sophisticate both- the growing demands of the customers and needs of employees. Craig and Powell (2011) suggests that the number of employees working non-standard hours is rapidly increasing. A number of researches stress the ambiguity in perception of flexibility (Skorstad and Ramsdal, 2009; Furaker et al., 2007) as this term is wide and can be seen from different angles and due to that, like Furaker et al. (2007) claimed- we cannot be assured that flexibility has a positive impact on everyone. ZHCs is a mean employed by DC companies in order to achieve flexibility in work hours. CIPD (2015) survey in line with Furaker et al. (2007) highlights that work conditions under the ZHC are not for everyone as despite promoted flexibility such contratcs expose a risk of no work available for employees, which also means no incomes.

Empirical studies, testing the association between flexible working and commitment provide contradictory outcomes-flexible working can positively link with OC, however at the same time commitment can be negatively affected and this outcome depends on personal needs, expectations and perceptions. When a new DC recruit joins the company, she/he is expecting to get a certain number of work hours to satisfy her/his personal needs. This desired number of work hours is a part of the PC. However, due to the nature of HSC sector, there is no guarantee that this number of work hours will reflect on the actual schedule.

A number of studies focused on the effects of non-standard schedules, long or short work hours to employees and mainly emphasised the importance of the work-life balance, employee commitment and the effect of too high or too low numbers of the actually worked hours. A smaller number of studies recognised the conflict between the desired and actual work hours and employed different approaches , i.e. revealing the reasons for a mismatch (Van Echtelt et al., 2006) and the reasons why employees do not attempt to change their work hours (Reynolds, 2003). A vast number of studies have also established the links between different working hours and employees’ health (Savery and Luks, 2000). By contrast to the relatively large literatures on these aspects a very few have assessed the importance of the mismatch between the actual and preferred working hours (Van Emmerik and Sanders, 2005, Van Echtelt et al., 2006 Wooden et al., 2009, Kawata, 2015) and, as believed, only one study by Van Emmerik and Sanders (2005) analysed the direct relation between this discrepancy and the AC. However, this research, explored how the overemployment and underemployment bounds this effect between two different employee characteristics- gender and part-time status only. Following Reynold’s (2003) distinction of employee characteristics and to add to continuity of the Van Emmerik and Sanders (2005) study, the following characteristics will be considered when conducting this research: age and family structure.

Age

The interest in the age factor as a vital mediator when it comes to work related behaviour of employees is growing due to the association between different generations and different needs and perceptions between these generations (Lub et al., 2015). Beck’s (1960) referred to age as a most important indicator affecting OC. In line to Beck’s perception, Ritzer and Trice (1969), while testing Beck’s (1960) theory, stressed that age is one of the main mediators affecting OC. A number of later studies have also concluded a positive link between these two variables (Poerter et al., 1974, Welsch and LaVan, 1981). Although Meyer and Allen (1997, p. 44) also suggests that there is a possibility, that affective commitment is linked to the employee’s age a number of empirical studies that proved this link suggest that this factor should not be ignored (Gardner and Forsyth, 2008).

Family structure

Family structure is one of the determinants of the employee reaction to various work conditions. Reynolds (2003) expresses the link between the family structure and employees’ preferences towards the work hours. In addition Kawata (2015) suggests that the necessary hours for house work depends on the family situation, which would leave less time for work hours. Employees with higher family responsibilities will need a higher proportion of time dedicated to family and less to work (Shaffer and Harrison, 1998). However the intension to leave can be decreased due to commitment to support family financially. Different variables (i.e. marital status, number of children, dual-incomes status) of family structure can impact different employee approaches and organisational behaviours (Stroh et al., 1996, Shaffer and Harrison, 1998, Berg et al., 2003)

Despite the vast number of research analysing the effect of family structure, these associations are based only on long or short working hours and ignores the need for the work hours to match the need of the employee.

 

 

Research Questions

Reflecting on the literature review, following research questions aroused:

• To what extent does the mismatch in preferred and actual working hours correlate with the affective commitment
• How and to what extent does the mismatch between preferred and actual work hours affect affective commitment and intensions to leave the Company X of employees from different family structures
• How and to what extent does the mismatch between preferred and actual work hours affect affective commitment and intensions to leave the Company X of employees from different generation groups

 

Research Objectives

This research will continue in line with Van Emmerik and Sanders’ (2005) study and aim to critically evaluate the effect of the mismatch between work hours preferences and actual work hours on affective employee commitment. It will also aim to contribute to Van Emmerik and Sanders’ (2005) study by investigating to what extent the age and the family structure as mediating variables affect the affective commitment of employees that belong to these distinct employee groups. These demographic characteristics were chosen to be investigated after the literature review revealed the importance of these particular mediators to the AC. Furthermore this study intends to contribute to the above analysed theories and literature on affective commitment, implementation of ZHCs, retention and the significance of the impact of mediating demographical characteristics.

 

Methodology

Research Design

Due to the explanatory (Sounders et al., 2012) nature of the research and taking into account the research questions this study will require to employ quantitative research methods. There is a potential need of using qualitative methods for any clarification and in-depth analyses of the statistics gathered through quantitative methods, therefore this method will not be kept aloof and it might be considered and broadened within the process of quantitative data analyses in order to follow a coherent way to address research questions (Walters, 1990, Sounders et al., 2012).

The research aims at a single case study strategy will be employed that will enable to explore how the theory works in a context and will support in challenging the theory and potentially produce new research questions for the future studies (Sounders et al., 2012).

Data Collection and Analysis

32 London’s domiciliary care companies were requested to participate in this research. Positive response from Company X was received with a current number of 300 care workers employed on zero hours contracts. The workforce of the Company X is very diverse and represents a vast range of different characteristics, which enables to conduct a valuable research in order to achieve proposed objectives.

Primary and secondary data will be analysed to understand the relevant theory and the issue and to enable a consistent and comprehensive approach towards the research. Secondary data will be collected from the public statistic databases such as ONS and NMDS, results of the previous studies and also Company X employees’ database.

Following a single case study strategy primary data will also be gathered from the whole population (census) of the Company X entry-level care workers as 300 members of this employee group is of a manageable size (Sounders et al., 2012) to be analysed.

Anonymous structured questionnaires will be used to gather empirical data that will be e-mailed to 300 direct care workers at the Company X. Each employee of the Company X is using e-mails as this is the implemented way of the communication between the company and employees. The use of e-mailing system will enable me to hand out and collect data in a relatively quick way. Every respondent will be asked to answer the same pre-determined set of questions (deVaus, 2002) which will include few open-ended questions to identify the number of actual and preferred work hours and the date of birth of the respondents. In order to collect data that will enable to answer research questions questionnaire based on Mayer and Allen Survey (Jaros, 2007) will be adapted that is broadly used and its effectiveness has been tested and recognised by a vast number of studies analysing employee commitment. This instrument will be used to assess respondents’ affective commitment to their organisation.

A good questionnaire must collect the precise data to answer research questions and objectives (Sounders and Tosey, 2015). This method of collecting primary data is one of the most prevalent in quantitative studies as it is enabling to collect data from a large number of respondents in a relatively quick way (Sounders et al., 2012) hence the suggested questionnaire will be amended to suit the specific characteristics of the respondents of the domiciliary care workers. Taking into account the results of the Skills for Care (March, 2015) report which revealed that 43% if the care workforce does not hold qualifications and 37% are non-British, the questionnaire will be straight forward, with short and relatively easy to understand questions, avoiding the usage of a difficult language that can bring confusion or misunderstanding of the question point between the respondents and in that way to prompt a higher rate of responses and valid and relevant data to be received.

The most commonly used generation classification will be used in order to order respondents of different age- Baby Boomers (birth year between 1945-1964), Generation X (1965-1980), Generation Y (1981-1995) (Lub et al., 2015) as many large studies suggest that grouping in this way provide a clearer picture of differences between age groups (Twenge et al., 2010, Lub et al., 2015, Holian, 2015).

In terms of family structure, two variables will be tested- the dual earning status and status of children. The marital status will be ignored, as statistics show that more people bring their children up without getting married, hence marital status would not significantly affect the results of the research.

All statistical analysis will be conducted using SPSS software in order to examine the extent of correlation between the mismatch and commitment. Also, Pearson Product-Monument correlations will be used to examine the relationship between mediating variables in this study (i.e. family structure and age).

Finally, ethical issues that may arise from conducting this research will be discussed and determined following the codes of ethic (Sounders et al., 2012) The ethical consideration form will be filled in and approved by a project supervisor or, if needed, by Research Ethics Committee of University of Westminster to avoid poor practice before accessing data of the Company X.

Timescale

In order to conduct this research the model of the research that has been suggested by K. Punch, (2007) is followed mainly because it is simplified but at the same time covers all of the stages that are necessary for a good study. Research activities began in July, 2015 and the deadline for the project is 28^th of January, 2016.

Gantt Chart has been used to illustrate the timescale of the project, where K. Punch (2007) model’s stages have been listed and timed in order to enable timely process and to encourage the completion before the deadline. Few extra stages, including proposed meetings with a project supervisor, have been elaborated and added to the model in order to make it relevant to this particular research.

 

 

 

Limitations

This research is a small-scale research, which will be conducted in only one medium size company in a very specific private sector which will limit the generalisation of the findings.

Meyer and Allen (1997, p. 43) distinguished two types of person characteristics: demographic and dispositional. This research as well as Van Emmerik and Sanders’ (2005) intend to investigate the correlation between demographic variables only and due to the scale of the research dispositional variables, such as personality and values, will not be taken into consideration that can limit a whole understanding of the issue.

Data will be collected at a snapshot and that does not test how the person who is happy with the current work hours would be affected after the changes in those hours. A longitudinal approach cannot be employed due to the limited time frame.

 

 

 

 

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