Are there major differences in the attitudes and service quality of standard and seasonal employees? An empirical examination and implications for practice

• Published date: 01 January 2019
• Author: Paul Guillaume,Sherry E. Sullivan,Monica Forret,Hans‐Georg Wolff
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21929
• Date: 01 January 2019

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Are there major differences in the attitudes and service quality

of standard and seasonal employees? An empirical examination

and implications for practice

Paul Guillaume

1

| Sherry E. Sullivan

2

| Hans-Georg Wolff

3

| Monica Forret

4

1

Department of Human Resources, Minnesota

State Colleges and Universities, St Paul,

Minnesota

2

Department of Management, Bowling Green

State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

3

Department of Psychology, University of

Cologne, Koeln, Germany

4

Department of Management, St. Ambrose

University, Davenport, Iowa

Correspondence

Sherry E. Sullivan, Bowling Green State

University, Bowling Green, OH 43403.

Email: ssulliv@bgsu.edu

Despite the increased use of seasonal employees by organizations, few studies have been com-

pleted on the attitudes and service quality of seasonal office workers. Using Lautsch's classifica-

tion model, we analyzed the organizational context in which the standard and seasonal workers

in this study were employed. Hypotheses were developed based upon the organizational analy-

sis and social exchange theory. Results from archival data obtained from a web-based organiza-

tional survey of 205 clerical and professional workers indicated contrary to expectations,

standard and seasonal employees did not significantly differ in terms of perceptions of overall

job conditions, perceived organizational support (POS), or job engagement. However, seasonal

employees did report significantly fewer opportunities to work on challenging tasks, less

comfortable physical working conditions, and less job security than the standard workers. As

predicted, standard employees reported significantly higher levels of service quality perfor-

mance than seasonal employees. Additionally, job engagement mediated the relationship

between POS and service quality for both the standard and seasonal employees. Implications

for managing seasonal employees are discussed.

KEYWORDS

job engagement, nonstandard workers, perceived organizational support, seasonal employees,

service quality

1|INTRODUCTION

Over 40% of the U.S. workforce is estimated to be engaged in some

form of nonstandard employment (i.e., not year-round and/or not full-

time) (Jeszeck, 2015), with all of the net employment growth in the

United States over the last 10 years coming from these nonstandard

work arrangements (Katz & Krueger, 2016). Some of the growth in

nonstandard employment has been spurred by highly educated and

skilled individuals engaging in it as a means to secure more control

over their career choices (Briscoe & Hall, 2006; Sullivan & Baruch,

2009). Many white-collar workers are trading full-time employment

with one firm for self-employment composed of many seasonal or

short-term “gigs”(Boudreau, Jesuthasan, & Creelman, 2015; Cascio &

Boudreau, 2017; Irwin, 2016). For example, the U.S. Internal Revenue

Service typically hires over a thousand white-collar workers for sea-

sonal employment during the busy tax season (Clark, 2016).

The purpose of this study is to examine the potential differences

in the work attitudes and service quality of standard and seasonal

office workers. This study makes three major contributions to the lit-

erature. First, this study answers repeated calls for more research that

examines whether established relationships tested on standard

workers hold for nonstandard workers, such as seasonal employees

(Ashford, George, & Blatt, 2007; Cappelli & Keller, 2013; Connelly &

Gallagher, 2004). Despite the growth in seasonal and other forms of

nonstandard employment, Ashford et al. (2007) argued research on

employees' attitudes has focused primarily on standard workers

because they are more easily assessable and less difficult to study.

Ten years after Ashford and colleagues' call for more research, Spreit-

zer, Cameron, and Garrett (2017) reported finding no studies of sea-

sonal employees in the organizational behavior, psychology, and

sociology journals they reviewed. Because seasonal workers are only

occasionally present in organizations and are often marginalized

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21929

Hum Resour Manage. 2019;58:45–56. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 45