Documents Chowhan, James 7 results

"This study focuses on immigrants in Canada and examines their job satisfaction as compared to Canadian-born employees. The authors explore whether high performance work systems (HPWS) affect immigrant employees' job satisfaction differently than Canadian-born, where HPWS include empowerment, motivation and skill enhancing sub-bundles of practices. The study uses Statistics Canada's Workplace and Employee Survey, a longitudinal dataset consisting of six years of data from 1999 to 2004 and 49,344 employees. Ordered logistic regression analyses are used to explore causal relationships. The moderation results show that increases in the motivation sub-bundle and increases in overall experience of HPWS practices are related to increases in job satisfaction among immigrants when compared to Canadian-born employees. Immigrants are a segment of the workforce that is understudied in management. This study identifies HPWS bundles that positively affect immigrants' job satisfaction, suggesting a role for managers to capitalize on job satisfaction improvements ultimately contributing to organizational success. "

"This article examines associations between home care workers' health, and non-standard hours and insecurity. Health refers to symptoms of stress and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), non-standard hours refer to part-time and casual hours, and insecurity refers to job and employability insecurity. Data come from our 2002 survey of 532 home care workers (nurses, therapists and personal support workers) in a medium-sized city in Ontario, Canada. Path analysis regression results for the conceptual model show that (1) part-time and casual hours and job insecurity are positively and significantly associated with symptoms of stress, (2) the associations between part-time and casual hours and MSDs are mediated by symptoms of stress, and (3) job and employability insecurity are directly associated with MSDs. Results provide evidence that non-standard hours and insecurity must be addressed in order to improve home care workers' health. We show the detrimental effects of non-standard hours and insecurity on workers' health, and the results have implications for employers, human resource managers, trade unionists and government policy-makers."

"The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree of alignment of organizational strategies with two types of telework using Statistics Canada's 2005 Workplace and Employee Survey data. In this paper, we intentionally use the most inclusive definition of telework, because we are interested in all cases where an employee works from home at least some of the time. We consider telework to be ‘employee-oriented' when an employee works at home to address his and her family-related or personal wants or needs, and ‘employer-oriented' when an employee works at home due to the employer's strategic or operational objectives. The three organizational strategies that we considered were innovation, involvement, and cost-containment. We found that employers focusing on innovation were significantly more likely than other employers to use both types of telework, with greater emphasis on employee-oriented telework, whereas employers using an involvement strategy were less likely to use either type of telework, albeit at only a weak level of significance. Moreover, we did not find a statistical relationship between the cost containment strategy and either type of telework. We hypothesized that employee-oriented telework would be more common among workers in workplaces focusing on innovation or involvement, but less common among workers in workplaces focusing on cost containment. We hypothesized the reverse situation for the incidence of employer-oriented telework. On the whole, the results suggested that employers are not universally aligning the implementation of the two types of telework with their organizational strategies. Rather, either telework is not commonly used as a strategic tool or, alternatively, the strategic implementation of these two types of telework is more contingent upon other organizational or employee factors in specific circumstances."

"This study contributes to the emerging literature on immigrants' life, job, and pay satisfaction by focusing on a relatively understudied aspect of the immigrant experience – satisfaction with pay and benefits. The purpose of the study is to first examine whether there are differences in satisfaction with pay and benefits between Canadian-born and immigrant workers, and if so, to then examine factors associated with immigrants' pay and benefits satisfaction using discrepancy and equity theoretical frameworks.Immigrants are examined in four cohorts based on the year of arrival. We use Statistics Canada's 2005 Workplace and Employee Survey (WES), which is a large Canadian dataset containing responses from both employers and employees enabling us to control for individual and workplace heterogeneity. Both descriptive and multivariate regression results found that, with the exception of the pre-1965 cohort, all immigrant cohorts report significantly lower pay and benefit satisfaction compared to Canadian-born workers. Further, we find that for Canadian-born workers, external and internal referents, non-wage benefits, and pay-for-performance are positively related to pay and benefit satisfaction, whereas pay-for-output is important for the 1986 to 1995 and 1996 to 2005 immigrant cohorts.We conclude that the lack of consistency in the factors contributing to pay and benefits satisfaction across Canadian-born and immigrant groups suggests that the theories and traditional models for pay and benefit satisfaction may not be as relevant when studying immigrants. We recommend that further studies of a qualitative nature tease out factors associated with immigrants' pay and benefits satisfaction and contribute to the refinement of existing theories. The results can also assist human resource managers and government policy-makers to facilitate more successful integration and retention of immigrants."

" This paper provides evidence of on-the-job training for lowpaid workers in Canada and examines workplace and individual factors associated with their on-the-job training. The study uses Statistics Canada's Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) 2001 data. Results show that less than a quarter of low-paid workers received on-the-job training in 2001 as compared to one third of higher-paid workers. A decomposition of regression models indicated that this substantive gap is statistically significant. With the shrinking labour force, ongoing skills development is needed to enable workers to earn a decent living, fulfill their work-related goals, and contribute to the current and future productivity of their workplaces and the economy. We recommend governments provide support for low-paid workers' on-the-job training. "

"Many employers seek flexibility through part-time or temporary employment to achieve improved competitiveness and success. Using strategic choice theory, this study is a longitudinal examination of employers' strategic decisions of reducing labour costs and using part-time or temporary workers on workplace performance. Workplace performance is measured through profitability, productivity and change in net operating revenue. Statistics Canada's Workplace and Employee Survey longitudinal workplace data are used for the analysis. Results show that reducing labour costs strategy has no effect on profitability, productivity or change in net operating revenue, and using part-time or temporary workers strategy shows decreased profitability and productivity, and that there is no effect on the change in net operating revenue in Canadian workplaces studied. Based on these findings, we recommend that employers, in Canada and elsewhere, not only carefully weigh reducing labour costs and employing part-time or temporary workers strategies for workplace performance, but also reconsider such strategies and instead seek alternative means of improving workplace performance. "

"This study extends prior research assessing the impacts of advancements in automation on employment by focusing on the effect on various population groups. Employing a human capital and intersectionality lens, and a moderated-mediation analysis of Canadian 2016 Census data, this study finds the effects of automation differ significantly depending on the intersections of income level, gender and visible minority status, differences that for the most part are explained (or mediated) by human capital, especially education. The article discusses several public policy implications related to the roles of individuals, employers and governments in addressing the resulting labour market challenges."