How to Tackle Job Insecurity: Job Resources VS Demands

Key Points:

Resources and demands both matter for job insecurity but the former matters more.
Loss of resources and increase in demands are more crucial for part-time employees or blue collar workers foor feeling job insecurity than full-time or white collar workers.
Temporary workers feel more insecure about losing their jobs entirely whereas permanent workers feel more insecure about losing some features of their jobs.
Gender, tenure and union membership doesn’t seem to matter for feeling job insecure.
The extent to which one feels job insecurity depends on macro economic and cultural factors.

Have you ever found yourself trying to look busy at work, just to avoid being perceived as slacking on the job, and to protect your job? That feeling refers to job insecurity – the fear of losing one’s job.

Job insecurity (JI) is a menace. In the Randstad’s Annual work monitor report almost half of the respondents worried about the economic uncertainties and their impact on their job. In the same report over a third worried about losing their jobs altogether (see here). In another poll, in the US, the results aren’t as grim but they show 15% of the respondents’ thought they were going to lose their jobs in a year (see here). I know annual survey results are not good evidence for you evidence-based folks out there, but last year at SFW I wrote an article that explained how grave job insecurity(JI) is with over 50 negative associations spanning individual, work and organizational outcomes (see, here). This year I decided to return to the topic with another luminous study by Jiang et. al. (2021).

What is Job Insecurity?

Job insecurity has 3 features: Subjectivity, uncertainty and vulnerability (Jiang et. al., 2020). By nature, most employment has all 3 to some extent. By virtue of having a contract, an employee goes into a power agreement with a power imbalance where the continuation of their work depends on somebody else. This can include someone with higher power than themselves, someone that they can not control and someone that they don’t know what they think but can only presume. Thus most employment has all 3 features to an extent and it is crucial to look into factors that relate with JI.

What matters more for JI: Job resources or demands?

The most comprehensive explanatory meta-analysis study to date by Lixin Jiang et. al. (2020) explores the antecedents of job insecurity (JI) through the lens of job resources and demands theory. This theory is a stress theory that focuses on the imbalance of demands on the individual and the resources he or she has to deal with those demands (Bakker, 2007). The study combines 337 studies from 1986-2018 with 425 independent samples spanning 219,190 individuals from 39 countries.

The results show that job resources and demands whether they are personal such as personality related (e.g. conscientiousness, psychological capital, neuroticism, negative affectivity) or constructive (intersect of people and their environments, e.g., organization based self esteem, employability, etc.) and organizational such as structure related (e.g., job autonomy, distributive justice, role ambiguity, work load…) or socialization related (e.g., organizational support, trust in organization ) are both tied to job insecurity. The resources show a pattern where they show their tie being overall stronger than the demands’. Hence gathering, providing resources can be more effective in tackling job insecurity(JI) than removing demands and organizations should consider doing so.

Are Demographics Tied to More Job Insecurity?

For demographics; your tenure, gender or whether you are a member of a union or not doesn’t seem to matter much for job insecurity and does not affect its relationship with the resources. On the other hand, organizational, tenure, full-versuspart-time employment, permanent versus temporary employment, and white- versus blue-collar all seem to relate to JI. With more precarious ones and blue collared workers being tied to more JI than the others. However, job tenure, gender, and union membership were not significantly related to JI. These results should provide organizations with important insights about which demographic factors they should consider in making prioritizations and should make union leaders and policy makers scratch their heads and ask themselves what they can do to help union members feel secure about their work. But that’s not it or is it?

What about the Macro?

The world of labor and the markets are not just made of individual or organizational components. There is also the culture and the economy that ultimately impacts both the organizations and individuals navigating in it. Therefore it’s essential to also look into the bigger factors and their impact on how people perceive threats to their jobs. The study does this by exploring “macro” factors that impact the relationship between resources/demands and job insecurity.

The study results are a bit worrying for the developing countries as it is most often the case with other similar issues. The results show that societies with higher GDP (gross domestic product), and higher individualism showed less job insecurity then societies with low individualism. Additionally higher individualist cultures showed better ability to cope with demands in terms of job insecurity. On the other hand, high power-distance (the extent to which a society/ culture accepts the inequality in power differences, see here) undermined the relationship between resources/demands and job insecurity and catalyzed demands’ already negative relationship with JI. Meaning that the more accepting of an authoritative boss a culture is, the employees in that culture are more likely to be more insecure about their job. Furthermore the study showed that the unemployment rate of countries didn’t seem to affect the relationship.

In summary, employees in developing nations are more prone to job insecurity than their counterparts in countries with more macro resources and less demands. Providing more resources can help societies cope with job insecurity but since the countries in question have less resources it becomes a catch 22 situation. Still developing nations can help employees cope with JI by focusing on the cultural factors such as, egalitarianism, individualism and less power distance and as they climb up the economic development ladder they can allocate more resources to the employees and hence tackle JI more effectively.

Fear of Losing Your Job or Fear of Losing Some Aspects of Your Job?

When looking at types of job insecurity, permanent employees seem to be more afraid about changes or loss of important features in their jobs compared to their temporary employed counterparts whereas temporary employed showed more fear of actual loss of job then permanently employed. Indicating that compared with a temporary contract, a permanent contract is more likely to protect employees from job loss but not the loss of important job features (Jiang et al., 2020).

Takeaways for your practice

Since resources related to less job insecurity than the demands relate to more JI , leaders should consider building and making resources more accessible.

Leadership may consider implementing practices such as participatory leadership and provide opportunities for self-direction and self-control along with organizational signals such as perceived organizational support, trust, and fairness, and success building conditions such as performance support may allow employees to feel themselves as valued and capable members of their team and hence perceive less threatened about loss of their jobs. However these individuals who are more attached to their jobs might also be affected more at the event of a job loss (Jiang et. al., 2018)

Employment comes with imbalances, by providing organizational justice(interactional, procedural, distributive) managers and organizational leaders might strike the balance where the employees are not always reminded of mentioned imbalances and hence not feel so weak.

Leaders also may consider taking off some of the demands to help their employees engage with their work. Practices aimed at decreasing role ambiguity such as, providing role clarity and involving employees in the decision making (Bauer & Simmon, 2000) as well as decreasing their workload which all can lead employees to feel more confident and less worried about losing their jobs.

Additionally, organizations may consider implementing initiatives related to job autonomy, open two way communication (Jiang & Probst, 2014), positive organizational climate, as such practices are considered effective ways to decrease job insecurity (Probst et. al., 2018).

Individuals may consider seeking to increase their personal resources such as PsyCap and organization-based self esteem (OBSE, degree to which an individual believes he/she is a capable, significant, and worthy member of an organization) as these relate to JI more than other personal sources.

Job insecurity is inherent to the employment contracts with the power imbalances and uncertainties that come with them. Considering job insecurity’s negative individual and organizational outcomes (see here), individuals, organizations and decision makers should consider looking into the antecedents and recommendations covered in this article. By decreasing demands and increasing resources to their employees- with the latter being more effective than the former- organizations can make work better for their employees and help themselves avoid JI and its seemingly negative outcomes.

Trustworthiness score:

The trustworthiness of the study is moderate (80%). This means there is a 20% chance that alternative explanations for the effects found are possible.

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References

Bauer, J. C., & Simmons, P. R. (2000). Role ambiguity: A review and integration of the literature. Journal of Modern Business, 3(1), 41-47.

Jiang, L., Xu, X., & Wang, H. J. (2021). A resources-demands approach to sources of job insecurity: A multilevel meta-analytic investigation. Journal of occupational health psychology, 26(2), 108–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000267

Jiang, L., & Lavaysse, L. M. (2018). Cognitive and affective job insecurity: A meta-analysis and a primary study. Journal of Management, 44(6), 2307–2342. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206318773853

Jiang, L., & Probst, T. M. (2018, April). Country-level corruption worsens the consequences of job insecurity. In L. Jiang (Chair), New development in job insecurity research: Antecedents, mediators, and moderators. Symposium presented at the 33rd Annual Conference of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Chicago, IL.

Jiang, L., & Probst, T. M. (2014). Organizational communication: A buffer in times of job insecurity?. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 35(3), 557-579.

You can find the original article here