Sustainable psychological contracts: A pathway for addressing precarious employment

Yannick Griep*, Sarah Bankins, Johannes M. Kraak, Sherman Ultan, Samantha D. Hansen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The nature of work has changed significantly over the last several decades. Employment in the traditional sense is moving from office buildings to a gig economy characterized by increasing forms of precarious employment, such as self-employment, algorithmic management, platform work, and insecure temporary employment. Although these changes have brought benefits in terms of increased work flexibility for employees and employers, they have also made work more insecure, isolating, and demanding, essentially changing the nature of the traditional employee-employer relationship. In this chapter, we first outline how work has become more precarious and how this impacts employee wellbeing. We then discuss the notion of sustainable human resource management and how its key principles can help mitigate and minimize the negative effects of precarious work. Next, we suggest how these principles can be embedded into a new type of psychological contract, namely, a sustainable and high-quality psychological contract, and discuss how organizations and employees can create, maintain, and repair said psychological contracts. Building on this, we introduce some guiding principles that organizations can use to implement sustainable and high-quality psychological contracts as a way to alleviate or prevent precarious employment conditions.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTackling precarious work
Subtitle of host publicationtoward sustainable livelihoods
EditorsStuart C. Carr, Veronica Hopner, Darrin J. Hodgetts, Megan Young
Place of PublicationNew York, NY
PublisherRoutledge, Taylor and Francis Group
Chapter13
Pages302-324
Number of pages23
ISBN (Electronic)9781003440444
ISBN (Print)9781032576657, 9781032576633
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

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