Temp workers: why be loyal?

Abstract

This paper addresses workers' loyalty toward a temp agency. Loyalty reduces contact and management costs, so temp agencies attempt to retain valuable workers. The study therefore focuses on factors that attach workers to their temp agency. This study offers an interdisciplinary approach, according to which the temporary worker is both an employee and a client of the agency. It highlights important factors that determine temp workers' loyalty to the agency, using a relational perspective. A hybrid model, based on social exchange theory, integrates services marketing and human resource management literature to explain the attachment of temporary workers to an agency. Social exchange theory offers an integrative framework for explaining a person's loyalty to an organisation (employer or supplier), based on reciprocity.