Work engagement factors: the case of job hoppers

Year 2019

The project aims to investigate the factors of engagement for a particular category of employees: temporary and agency staff, who are also referred to as job hoppers.

The psychological pact that fosters the sense of belonging and loyalty to the organization on the part of temporary staff is, in fact, weakened by a horizon of uncertainty about the continuity of the relationship. Agency workers, on the other hand, enter into working contact with an agency which, in turn, "administers" them to a company: they therefore enter into a psychological agreement with two different organisations, and the organisational identification is also two-fold.

The research project therefore intends to identify the specific factors that influence work engagement in the case of job hoppers, factors that may differ from those most relevant for employees with permanent contacts.

The aim of the research project will also be to explore the feasibility of developing an investigation protocol to study the topic through neuromanagement techniques and tools in collaboration with the Neuromarketing Research Centre of the IULM.

Main activities planned:

• Gathering of secondary data and scientific literature available on the subject of the engagement of temporary and temporary workers for the identification of the relevant factors for the engagement of job hoppers
• Construction of the method of collecting primary data to test these factors
• Development of research models and tools
• Data collection through:
  • a survey on a sample of collaborators (provided by a company specialised in the construction of samples)
  • qualitative methods that will be evaluated as more appropriate: focus groups, interviews, experiments in neuromanagement
• Analysis of the data and information gathered
• Exploration of the use of neuromanagement techniques to investigate work engagement factors
• Drafting of the research report
• Preparation of academic articles
• Dissemination of results also through more widely distributed publications