Managing precarious employment arrangements. Professional contractors and social support

Managing precarious employment arrangements. Professional contractors and social support Robyn Cochrane and Tui McKeown Monash University This study presents the sources of social support available to and used by a 240 Professional Contractors (PCs) in Victoria, Australia. As part of the non-standard workforce, the PCs in this study access work via professional recruitment/contracting agencies (CAs). Accordingly, it was proposed that PCs experience many insecurities associated with these employment arrangements, and rely on social support to manage a contracting lifestyle. The results found that PCs generally relied more on home-related support than work-related support. The effect of gender was evident within these results. Males more frequently reported spouse, partner or defacto than females; females reported a greater number of sources of support than males; and females reported greater levels of satisfaction with support received than males. Contrary to expectations, females reported a greater number of work-related supports than males. The presence of dependents was also found to be important, as PCs with dependents reported a greater number of supports. These results are generally consistent with past studies and provide insights for managing a precarious, contracting lifestyle. Introduction In a competitive global marketplace, organisations strive to maximise effi ciency and fl exibility to optimise performance. Consequently, the concept of workforce fl exibility has emerged and evolved. The emphasis on workforce fl exibility has compounded many of the insecurities associated with non-standard employment in general, and contracting arrangements in particular. The term non-standard employment is not precisely defi ned or accurately captured through Government data collection sources. However, many commentators agree that the major defi ning characteristic is the absence of full-time, permanent, open-ended and secure employment (see Burgess, 2002; Watson, Buchanan, Campbell and Briggs, 2003). Through the analysis of self-reported survey data, this research study identifi es the supports available to and used by PCs. Interview data from three Melbourne-based CAs complements and extends the survey data. The employment environment of PCs Incomplete workforce statistics make capturing the parameters of professional contractors a diffi cult task. Legally, these types of employment arrangements have been, and continue to be, challenging and subject to some debate. This situation is compounded by the growth in labour hire and confl icting fi ndings being reported about the experiences of contractors (see for example Brennan, Valos and Hindle, 2003). However, as a starting point, ABS (2004) data indicates that 8% (141,500) of professionals are own-account workers, and many more are likely to have non-standard arrangements. The insecurities associated with non-standard employment have been acknowledged (see Burgess, 2002; Watson et al., 2003). These insecurities relate to working-time, income, benefi ts, function, skill reproduction and employment generally. However, when these themes are considered within the context of professionals, slightly different themes become apparent. Davis-Blake and Uzzi (1993) attribute the reasons for organisations using professional contractors to the requirement for a highly skilled and committed workforce. At the elite end of the contracting continuum, the professional contractor workforce appears to differ from many other peripheral arrangements as it is characterised by high demand and short supply (Van Huss, 1995). These characteristics place the professional contractor in a somewhat stronger negotiating position than the more easily replaced unskilled or low skilled contractor. ‘Drawing together the literature on self-employment, professionals and contracting provide an extremely optimistic picture of the self-determined, self-actualised worker’ (McKeown, 2001, p. 95).