Perceived Organizational Support, Work Engagement, and Intention to Stay Among Temporary Agency Workers

Abstract: The use of temporary agency workers (TAWs) has grown over the years, and previous research shows that TAWs do not always have time to create interpersonal relationships, experience unequal work tasks, and perceive a lack of social support within the organization. Hence, this study aimed to investigate to what extent perceived organizational support (POS) from the client organization and the perception of equal work correlates with TAWs work engagement, and furthermore to what extent these factors correlate with their intention to stay. Moreover, it aimed to investigate whether there were any significant differences depending on the form of employment. A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted among TAWs (N=50) within the industrial area in the south region of Sweden. Because of skewed and leptokurtic data, the non-parametric tests, Spearman's Rank Correlation, and Mann-Whitney U test were used. The results showed that POS and the perception of equal work positively correlate with TAWs work engagement. Furthermore, these factors also correlated positively with TAWs intention to stay at the client organization and within the same branch, but not as a TAW. Finally, the results showed that the only significant difference depending on the form of employment was in the intention to stay as a TAW, whereas temporary TAWs reported a lower likelihood of staying as a TAW. This study confirms previous research implying that POS has positive effects on employees' work engagement and intention to stay, suggesting the importance for client organizations to focus on POS among their employees.