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This research focused on agency work. Previous studies highlighted the importance of motivations to understand workers’ attitudes, behaviors and well-being. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the contribution of perceptions of support from organizations to autonomous motivation for temporary agency employment, the relationship of motivations with workers’ well-being and the mediating role of motivations between perceptions of organizational support (POS) and workers’ well-being.

The hypotheses were tested with a sample of 3,983 temporary agency workers and using structural equation modeling.

The authors verified that POS from the agency contributed to both autonomous motivation and controlled motivation for temporary agency employment, whereas POS from the client company only contributed to autonomous motivation for temporary agency employment. Moreover, autonomous motivation for temporary agency employment was positively associated with workers’ well-being. Contrary to expectations, controlled motivation for temporary agency employment was not significantly associated with workers’ well-being. As predicted, autonomous motivation for temporary agency employment was a mediator in the relationship between POS and workers’ well-being.

The study relies on self-reported data, and it does not have a longitudinal design.

An important implication of this research study is that organizations, through the support provided to the workers, may contribute positively to increase workers’ autonomous motivation for temporary agency employment, and, in turn, more autonomous motivation for temporary agency employment relates to higher levels of workers’ well-being.

The study innovates by including in the same model variables that may contribute to workers’ motivation for temporary agency employment as well as the outcomes that may arise from workers’ motivation for temporary agency employment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the moderating role of affective commitment in the relationship between work-personal life conflict (WPLC) and burnout in the contact center environment.

Data were obtained through the participation of a sample of Portuguese employees (n=2,055) of a large company in the contact center sector. Data were analyzed using the Process tool.

The results support the existence of a positive relationship between both dimensions of WPLC (i.e. time and strain) and burnout (i.e. exhaustion and cynicism). Moreover, the study confirms that the affective commitment moderates the relationship between both dimensions of WPLC and cynicism, buffering these relationships.

The cross-sectional design and the reliance on self-report measures are the main limitations of this study, although no causality was claimed and method biases were controlled.

Contact center managers should develop human resources practices that aid employees to conciliate work and life. Furthermore, these work-life balance practices should be used together with high involvement human resources practices that promote employees’ affective commitment.

This study provides evidence for the need to reconceptualize the traditional work-family conflict, stressing the importance of considering the interference between domains of life, especially in sectors that tend to have young employees.

A major trend in the changing nature of work is the increasing use of temporary workers. Although common among students, older employees have joined the ranks of temporary workers as they extend their work lives. Temporary workers tend to report lower affective commitment and consequently poorer work outcomes. However, different generations of workers may conceive temporary work differently from each other. The purpose of this paper is to explore how different generations of temporary workers, respond to human resource practices (HRP), which in turn influences their affective commitment and work performance.

The sample is comprised of 3,876 temporary agency workers (TAWs) from seven temporary employment agencies in Portugal. The authors undertook multiple group SEM analyses to test a moderated mediation model that accounts for TAWs’ affective commitment (toward the agency and the client company) across three generations (Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials) in the relationship between human resources practices and overall perceived performance.

After controlling for gender, age and tenure, the authors find generational differences in the perceptions of HRP and perceived performance. The results support the moderator effect of generations in the direct and indirect relationships – through both affective commitments – between TAWs’ perceived HRP and perceived performance.

The cross-sectional design limits the possibility to make causal inferences.

This study contributes to a better understanding of how different generations respond to temporary employment relationships. The findings suggest important differences in the way in which the same HRP system relates (directly and indirectly thorough affective commitment toward the client) with their perceived performance across different generations.

This paper aims to explore the extent to which participation in a previous graduate recruitment programme affects graduates’ organisational affective commitment and their desire to remain.

With the support of a Portuguese organisation that annually operates a trainee programme to attract the best graduates from top universities, a questionnaire with human resource management (HRM) practices, affective commitment and turnover intention scales was used, with data collected from 168 recent recruited graduates representing two groups: graduates with previous participation in the trainee programme and graduates non-trainees.

Despite the company’s expectation that graduate trainees would present higher levels of affective commitment and lower intentions to voluntarily leave than employees recruited by traditional procedures, the t-test results show no significant differences between groups. However, correlations for both groups show a significant positive association between perceived HRM practices and affective commitment and a negative relation with turnover intention. These results suggest that placing a high value on HR practices leads to reinforcement of employment relations and a decrease in the desire to voluntarily leave.

The findings suggest the need for organisations to rethink their recruitment strategies and raise an interesting question with regard to organisational strategy: is it useful or fair to create two groups of graduates within the same organisation, because we may be promoting the development of two micro-cultures?

The study with this specific group is needed because of an increased implementation of trainee programmes all over Europe as a means of attracting graduates. The literature is scarce, focusing only on trainees’ attitudes compared to those recruited through traditional procedures.

The purpose of this paper is to compare part-time and full-time employees, analyzing the relationship between job characteristics and workplace well-being (i.e. burnout and engagement) and the mediating role of the work-to-life conflict with a sample of 736 employees from 14 Portuguese call center companies.

The hypotheses were tested with multiple group analysis on two samples: part-time and full-time employees.

The results confirm that in both the part-time and full-time subsamples employees’ perceptions of job characteristics are related to their well-being, and the work-to-life conflict partially mediates this relationship. Moreover, the study confirms that the relationship between employees’ perceptions of job demands and the work-to-life conflict and between the work-to-life conflict and workplace well-being were stronger for full-time than for part-time employees.

The co-relational and cross-sectional design should be regarded as limitations. Moreover, each variable was only assessed with self-reported measures, and the sample comprised call center employees from only one country (Portugal), which may constrain the generalization of these results.

Part-time work is a good solution in order to prevent the work-to-life conflict. Furthermore, a reduced workload and time pressure, enhanced decision latitude and supervisory support appear to be crucial work characteristics for employees juggling their work with other roles and in the promotion of well-being at work.

This research study provides evidence that the traditional vision of the work-family conflict requires a broader conceptualization by considering the interference between life roles, particularly in the case of full-time young employees.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between employer psychological contract (PC) fulfillment and employee attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intention to leave the organization) by using employees’ perceptions of PC violation and organizational justice as serial mediators.

Data from 44 managers and 880 employees from 44 Spanish organizations were analyzed through multilevel structural equation modeling.

Results showed that employees’ feelings of PC violation and justice perceptions mediated the relationships between the employers’ PC fulfillment assessed by managers and job satisfaction and organizational commitment assessed by employees. The mediation effect was not significant for employees’ intention to leave the organization.

This study contributes to understand the process through which PC influences work outcomes, outlining the relevance of organizational justice as social exchange theory and PC theory (Guest, 2004) stated. In addition, present results extend the influence of PC on work outcomes from the individual to the organizational level.

Employability has been studied in different disciplines (e.g. occupational health and career) and has been seen as a personal resource with overall positive outcomes. The present research investigates the behavioral implications of (perceived) employability and responds to the recent call of research that perceived employability could have not only positive but also negative behavioral implications. Furthermore, this study aims to reduce the asymmetry of data set and replication of existing results in non-Western economies.

Multinationals were taken as context to test the hypotheses, and a sample of 230 white-collar employees was drawn from fast-moving consumer goods companies. Partial least square–structural equation modeling through SmartPLS was used to analyze the data.

In light of social exchange theory, the present research identified the dark side of employability, which may impair the employer–employee relationship. Perceived employability did not relate significantly with in-role performance, nor did it correlate with organizational citizenship behavior, that is, a discretionary behavior promotes the efficient and effective functioning. However, perceived employability had a positive significant relationship with OCBI, that is, helping supervisors and coworkers with heavy workloads, as well as with counterproductive behaviors.

Employable workers have always been considered key players and an asset for organizations due to their high productivity skills. A balanced employer–employee relationship creates a mutual win; therefore, a carefully drafted human resources policy may help organizations to fulfill the needs of employable workers and reap optimal benefits in terms of productivity. Behavioral training to supervisors/managers may help to assertively deal with employees' negative behavior without further escalation.

The present study suggests a paradoxical perspective in employability – a behavior debate, which is in an initial phase where it is difficult to determine whether employable workers are productive to the organizations or not.

The purpose of this paper is to test the direct effect of the perceived overqualification on the burnout syndrome and the indirect effect through the workers’ autonomous and controlled motivation.

The hypotheses were tested with a sample of 3,256 contact center operators from one Portuguese company and data were analyzed using the software package Mplus to conduct structural equation models.

The results revealed that workers’ perceived overqualification is positively related to burnout and that both autonomous and controlled motivation partially mediates this relationship.

The cross-sectional design should be regarded as a limitation. Moreover, each variable was only assessed with self-reported measures, the sample comprised call center employees from only one company and one country (Portugal), and the workers were all employed in commercial services of telecommunications, energy, banking or insurance companies, which may constrain the generalization of these results.

Workers’ perceived overqualification should be avoided to prevent their burnout. Furthermore, an increase in workers’ skills and competencies, enhanced decision latitude, and the task variety and quality should be crucial for employees to develop more autonomous motivation to work in a contact center and the promotion of their well-being at work. More precisely, as overqualification concerns the employees’ perceptions of surplus education, experience and knowledge, from a practical perspective, enhancing the decision latitude, task variety and quality of these individuals’ work may contribute to decreasing individuals’ perception of overqualification and, therefore, contribute to increasing workers’ autonomous motivations and well-being.

This study provides evidence concerning the mediating role of both workers’ autonomous and controlled motivation to explain the relationship between perceived overqualification and burnout.

This study aims to examine the relationship between perceived overqualification, perceived employability, perceived job insecurity and global psychological needs satisfaction, considering the moderating role of age groups.

A cross-sectional survey design with a sample of 350 individuals was used in this study.

A cross-sectional survey design with a sample of 350 individuals was used in this study.

By addressing the moderating role of age, this study is original and has practical implications for age diversity management.

Este estudo tem como objetivo estudar a relação entre a sobrequalificação, a empregabilidade, a insegurança no trabalho percebidas e satisfação das necessidades psicológicas globais, considerando o papel moderador dos grupos etários.

Foi utilizado neste estudo um desenho de pesquisa transversal com uma amostra de 350 indivíduos.

A sobrequalificação percebida, a empregabilidade percebida e a insegurança no trabalho percebida estão, em geral, significativamente relacionadas com a satisfação das necessidades psicológicas globais. No entanto, essas relações diferem entre as faixas etárias. Ou seja, para os indivíduos mais jovens, foi observada uma relação negativa entre a perceção de sobrequalificação e a satisfação das necessidades psicológicas globais, e para os indivíduos de meia-idade, a empregabilidade percebida está positivamente relacionada à satisfação das necessidades psicológicas globais, enquanto a insegurança no trabalho percebida e a sobrequalificação percebida estão negativamente relacionadas à satisfação das necessidades psicológicas globais. Finalmente, para os indivíduos mais velhos, a insegurança no trabalho percebida e a sobrequalificação percebida estão negativamente relacionadas à satisfação das necessidades psicológicas globais.

Ao abordar o papel moderador da idade, este estudo é original e tem implicações práticas para a gestão da diversidade em função do grupo etário.

Este estudio examina la relación entre la sobrecualificación percibida, la empleabilidad percibida, la inseguridad laboral percibida y la satisfacción de las necesidades psicológicas globales, considerando el papel moderador de los grupos de edad.

En este estudio se utilizó un diseño de encuesta transversal con una muestra de 350 individuos.

La sobrecualificación percibida, la empleabilidad percibida y la inseguridad laboral percibida estaban, en general, significativamente relacionadas con la satisfacción de las necesidades psicológicas globales. Sin embargo, estas relaciones difieren entre los grupos de edad. En concreto, para los individuos más jóvenes, se observó una relación negativa entre la sobrecualificación percibida y la satisfacción de las necesidades psicológicas globales, y para los individuos de mediana edad, la empleabilidad percibida se relacionó positivamente con la satisfacción de las necesidades psicológicas globales, mientras que la inseguridad laboral percibida y la sobrecualificación percibida se relacionaron negativamente con la satisfacción de las necesidades psicológicas globales. Finalmente, para los individuos de mayor edad, la inseguridad laboral percibida y la sobrecualificación percibida se relacionaron negativamente con la satisfacción de las necesidades psicológicas globales.

Al abordar el papel moderador de la edad, este estudio es original y tiene implicaciones prácticas para la gestión de la diversidad de edad en el contexto de las políticas de RRHH de las organizaciones.

To analyze the relationship between technology-assisted supplemental work (TASW) and well-being in the workplace – burnout and engagement. Furthermore, this study aims to test the relationship between TASW and burnout, mediated by work-to-family conflict (WFC) and the relationship between TASW and engagement mediated by work-to-family enrichment (WFE).

The data was collected from a service company operating in Portugal. A total of 338 responses from a services company in Portugal were analyzed. Two statistical programs were used for the data analysis: IBM statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS 25.0) and SPSS analysis of moment structures (AMOS 25.0).

The results highlight the positive relationship between TASW and engagement and the relationship between TASW and burnout, which only exists when WFC is present. Moreover, the relationship between TASW and engagement is stronger through WFE.

Using the conservation of resources theory as a framework, the results contribute to the literature by shedding further light upon the positive effects of TASW on employees’ well-being and the work and family relationship.