Uncertain Time: Precarious Schedules and Job Turnover in the US Service Sector

The authors develop a model of cumulative disadvantage relating three axes of disadvantage for hourly workers in the US retail and food service sectors: schedule instability, turnover, and earnings. In this model, exposure to unstable work schedules disrupts workers’ family and economic lives, straining the employment relation and increasing the likelihood of turnover, which can then lead to earnings losses. Drawing on new panel data from 1,827 hourly workers in retail and food service collected as part of the Shift Project, the authors demonstrate that exposure to schedule instability is a strong, robust predictor of turnover for workers with relatively unstable schedules (about one-third of the sample). Slightly less than half of this relationship is mediated by job satisfaction and another quarter by work–family conflict. Job turnover is generally associated with earnings losses due to unemployment, but workers leaving jobs with moderately unstable schedules experience earnings growth upon re-employment.

Low-Wage Workers and the Enforceability of Noncompete Agreements

We exploit the 2008 Oregon ban on noncompete agreements (NCAs) for hourly-paid workers to provide the first evidence on the impact of NCAs on low-wage workers. We find that banning NCAs for hourly workers increased hourly wages by 2%–3% on average. Since only a subset of workers sign NCAs, scaling this estimate by the prevalence of NCA use in the hourly-paid population suggests that the effect on employees actually bound by NCAs may be as great as 14%–21%, though the true effect is likely lower due to labor market spillovers onto those not bound by NCAs. Whereas the positive wage effects are found across the age, education, and wage distributions, they are stronger for female workers and in occupations where NCAs are more common. The Oregon low-wage NCA ban also improved average occupational status in Oregon, raised job-to-job mobility, and increased the proportion of salaried workers without affecting hours worked. This paper was accepted by Lamar Pierce, organizations.

Does the Black/White Wage Gap Widen During Recessions?

Researchers have long documented a significant wage gap between White and Black workers, at least some of which is attributable to discrimination. Drawing on research suggesting that discrimination increases during recessions, we test whether the racial wage gap expands during economic downturns. Using longitudinal wage data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics over a 40-year time period (N = 18,954), we find that the wage gap between Black and White workers increases with the unemployment rate. Moreover, we find that the cyclical wage gap is more pronounced in states in which Whites hold more negative attitudes about Blacks and in states with larger Black populations, suggesting that the racial wage gap expansion during recessions is at least partially driven by discrimination. Finally, we find evidence for at least two mechanisms by which the wage gap expands during recessions. First, we find that Black workers are more likely to lose their jobs during downturns and earn lower wages upon reemployment than comparable Whites. Second, we find that Black hourly workers are slightly more likely to have their hours reduced during recessions than White hourly workers, thereby resulting in lower earnings. These findings suggest that the racial wage gap widens during recessions and that discrimination accounts for at least some of this expansion.

Playing in the backstore: interface gamification increases warehousing workforce engagement

PurposeIn a warehouse setting, where hourly workers performing manual tasks account for more than half of total warehouse expenditure, a lack of employee engagement has been directly linked to company performance. In this article, the authors present a laboratory experiment in which two gamification elements, goal setting and feedback, are implemented in a wearable warehouse management system (WMS) interface to examine their effect on user engagement and performance in an item picking task. Both implicit (neurophysiological) and explicit (self-reported) measures of engagement are used, allowing for a richer understanding of the user's perceived and physiological state.Design/methodology/approachThis experiment uses a within-subject design. Two experimental factors, goals and feedback, are manipulated, leading to three conditions: no gamification condition, self-set goals and feedback and assigned goals and feedback. Twenty-one subjects participated (mean age = 24.2, SD = 2.2).FindingsThis article demonstrates that gamification can successfully increase employee engagement, at least in the short-term. The integration of self-set goals and feedback game elements has the greatest potential to generate long-term intrinsic motivation and meaningful engagement, leading to greater employee engagement and performance.Originality/valueThis article explores the underlying effects of gamification through two of the most prominent motivational theories (self-determination theory [SDT] and goal-setting theory) and one of the leading employee engagement models (job demands-resource model [JD-R[ model). This provides a theory-rich interpretation of the data, which allows to uncover the motivational pathways by which gamification affects engagement and performance.

Worker Trainers as Workplace Experts: How Worker Trainers Enhance Safety and Health at Department of Energy Facilities

Worker trainers not only teach health and safety in the classroom setting but also serve informally as important peer resources on the shop floor. They are often the “go to” people, for both hourly workers and managers, when there is a health or safety question—be it about tank vapors or personal protective equipment, confined space, or specific chemicals. These worker trainers actively use health and safety resource materials, both hard copy and online. Documented here, through two surveys of worker trainers—at U.S. Department of Energy facilities, trained through the International Chemical Workers Union Council Consortium of the Worker Training Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences—is documentation of this additional contribution that worker trainers make toward safer and more healthful work places.

O6A.3 Implications of the workplace gender composition for depression-related service utilization: a retrospective cohort study of U.S. aluminum workers

IntroductionPast research finds that both male and female workers in male-dominated workplaces experience decreased job satisfaction and increased work-related stress. Female workers in particular are more likely to experience gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and social isolation. Nevertheless, systematic evidence regarding the association between workplace gender composition and worker mental healthcare utilization remains limited.MethodsUsing data from the American Manufacturing Cohort Study (AMC), we examined the association between workplace gender composition and risk of depression-related outpatient visits among hourly workers employed at one of 32 U.S. aluminum plants between 2003 - 2013.Using generalized additive models (GAM) with a logit link, we modeled risk of depression-related outpatient visits as a function of annual workplace gender composition (i.e. percent women) and covariates (baseline age, race, sex, plant, and calendar year). We captured potential nonlinear relationships using cubic smoothing splines. We used g-computation to summarize the counterfactual risk of depression-related outpatient visits under three hypothetical interventions wherein women comprised at least 10, 20, or 30 percent of the workforce at all plants for all years of follow-up. We compared these counterfactual risks to the risk under no intervention (the observed data).ResultsAcross all 32 U.S. plants, the final study sample included 5,279 female and 24,124 male hourly workers. We observed significant reductions in the number of depression-related outpatient visits when women comprised at least 20% (RD=-6.2, 95% CI -8.75, -3.65) and 30% (-14.6; 95% CI -19.0, -10.2) of the workforce. Findings were consistent within subgroups of male and female workers.ConclusionThe gender composition of industries, occupations, and workplaces is an important expression of social structure. We find that modest increases in the percent women employed in otherwise male-dominated work environments can lead to measurable reductions in the frequency of depression-related outpatient visits among male and female hourly workers.

Impossible Choices: How Workers Manage Unpredictable Scheduling Practices

A total of 16 percent of hourly workers and 36 percent of workers paid on some other basis experience unstable work schedules due to irregular, on-call, rotating, or split shifts, which negatively impact workers’ ability to manage family responsibilities, finances, and health. Primarily drawing on data from in-depth interviews conducted in Oregon in 2016, this study expands research on how workers navigate through “bad jobs” by exploring the ways in which they respond in an attempt to manage the individual impacts of precarious work arrangements. We found that workers respond to unpredictable scheduling in four ways: they acquiesce, self-advocate, quit, or directly oppose employers. Our findings highlight the “impossible choices” workers face as they negotiate prevalent, unpredictable work conditions, juggle work-life obligations, and struggle to remain employed. We conclude with fair week, work policy recommendations.

Increasing Schedule Predictability in Hourly Jobs: Results From a Randomized Experiment in a U.S. Retail Firm

For hourly workers, schedule predictability often depends on how far in advance schedules are posted. This article presents results from a process evaluation of an intervention to increase advance schedule notice in hourly retail jobs. The authors open up the black box of implementation to understand managers’ experiences posting schedules further in advance and employees’ ability to anticipate working time. Although schedules were posted further in advance in treatment than control stores, the intervention did not improve schedule anticipation. The findings demonstrate the value of attending to the “dual agenda” of assessing workplace interventions from the perspective of both employers and employees.

Competing for hours: unstable work schedules and underemployment among hourly workers in Canada

This paper investigates the relationship between schedule instability and underemployment among hourly employees. The value to employers of specific hours of work often varies over short intervals, motivating variable scheduling and incomplete contracts that do not specify hours or availability. When employers offer variable weekly total hours, competition for scarce hours motivates employees to be available for work over a broader range of times. Workers may consequently be rewarded with more hours, but they garner fewer hours than their counterparts with stable hours. Cross-sectional analysis of the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey demonstrates that underemployment is significantly more likely among hourly workers on unstable schedules. Longitudinal analysis indicates that even among the initially underemployed, who are strongly motivated to increase their availability, switching into an unstable schedule results in significantly fewer hours, providing evidence of employer-driven constraints on hours. There is no evidence of compensating differentials for unstable schedules.