Staffing agencies in work relationships with independent contractors

Abstract

Purpose While staffing agencies are gaining importance in work relationships with the highly skilled workforce, their work relations with highly skilled independent contractors have not been investigated yet. Staffing agencies as labor market intermediaries charge a fee to help independent contractors as well as client organizations to create contracts for services while independent contractors remain self-employed. Besides their growing relevance, their exact role remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of staffing agencies in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors. Design/methodology/approach The authors applied a mixed-methods design comprising a qualitative interview study with independent contractors and staffing agencies’ representatives (n=29) coupled with a quantitative survey of staffing agencies (n=81). Findings The analysis shows that staffing agencies are important actors in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors. However, the relationships can be differentiated into rather standardized ones on the one hand and individualized relations on the other hand. This seems to correspond with differences between sectors. Originality/value First, the authors discuss staffing agencies as new intermediaries and highlight their relevance in the negotiation of working conditions. Second, the authors emphasize variations of the role of staffing agencies in triadic work relationships of highly skilled independent contractors in relation to specificities of sectors. Third, the study also adds on organizational support theory and related research.

Free agents seeking for career support: exploring the expectations of skilled contingent workers vis-à-vis labour market intermediaries

“…IPros, temporary workers, independent contractors, on-call workers (Connelly and Gallagher, 2004;Cappelli and Keller, 2013;McKeown and Pichault, 2021). The number of contingent workers has been flourishing worldwide over the past decades, as companies nowadays resort ever more to that "external" workforce in the context of a tight labour market (Semenza and Pichault, 2019;Ruiner et al, 2020). However, scholars have not yet sufficiently explored those specific work arrangements to fully understand the matter (Caza et al, 2021).…”

“…Furthermore, SCWs are likely to face unstable and insecure work situations (Kalleberg, 2009;Conen and Schippers, 2019;Miller, 2020;Ayoobzadeh, 2021), altering career path predictability and stability, income continuity, or career development (David, 2005;Ashford et al, 2018;Jacobs et al, 2019;Caza et al, 2021). This situation is further exacerbated by the asymmetry of information that SCWs and companies hold about each other, which hinders the task of organisations seeking to recruit workers (Benner et al, 2007;Bessy and Chauvin, 2013;Ruiner et al, 2020).…”

“…Given these many challenges and issues, one way for SCWs to solve them is to engage in relationships with one or several LMIs (Ruiner et al, 2020), as those "arise from 'the imperfect information and information asymmetry that are ubiquitous'" in a flawed labour market (Benner et al, 2007, p. 13). In this respect, they can find institutional support that might help them in unfolding their careers, while distancing themselves from the traditional organisational settings from which they seem to be fleeing.…”

“…In their article, Lorquet et al (2018) stress that some LMIs give access to career management practices, such as training opportunities, information exchange, or career counselling. A last piece, related the previous work has deepened the role of staffing agencies in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors, who can also be labelled as SCWs (Ruiner et al, 2020). Ruiner et al (2020) shows that staffing agencies differ in the services they offer linked to the work relationship: some focus on making a profit on workers, while others offer legal services, or even care about the career development of their workers.…”

When do service suppliers leave their platform?—The role of friendships

“…In recent years, online service platforms (e.g., Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit) have received much attention both inside and outside of academia (Wirtz et al 2019). However, service platforms are not a new phenomenon (Edelman 2014), and there are many examples of offline service platforms, such as staffing agencies and temporary work agencies (Chen et al 2017;Ruiner et al 2019). In general, service platforms are two-or multi-sided markets that connect service suppliers with potential customers (Eisenmann et al 2006).…”