Paper for the 27 th
International Labour Process Conference, 6-8 th
April 2009, Edinburgh
Tanja van der Vleuten Roel Schouteten
Capgemini Consulting the Netherlands
P.O. Box 2575
NL-3500 GN Utrecht
The Netherlands
T: +31 30 689 3229
E: tanja.vander.vleuten@capgemini.com
Radboud University Nijmegen
P.O. Box 9108
NL-6500 HK Nijmegen
The Netherlands
T: +31 24 361 1267
E: r.schouteten@fm.ru.nl
Abstract
In this paper we report on the effects of organiz ational change on voluntary and paid workers’ job satisfaction in an organization in the voluntary sector: a regional department of the Dutch Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
About 570 voluntary and 70 paid workers in this department address the needs and rights of refugees and immigrants in 25 Municipalities in the central-eastern part of the Netherlands by facilitating and providing direct professional services (e.g. help with asylum procedures), and promoting the full participation of migrants in community life.
Due to changing market conditions (e.g. changes in government’s policy towards refugees and funding of the Committee), organizational change was necessary in order to become an effective, efficient and flexible market party. The changes that took place consisted of organizational growth (by merging with other regional departments), organizational downsizing (by closing some of the local offices), and organizational redesign (new job structure).
These changes affect the work characteristics that determine job satisfaction (Griffin, 1991; Mack et al.,
1998; Svensen et al., 2007). Job satisfaction is also affected by individual and personal differences. Being a voluntary or paid worker can influence job satisfaction, because of different expectations and work motivations (Hwang et al., 2005; Field and Johnson, 1993).
In this research we test whether the organizational changes had different effects on voluntary and paid workers’ job satisfaction. Using validated scales from existing Dutch questionnaires we measured work characteristics (e.g. job demands, job decision latitude, social support) and dependent variables (e.g. job satisfaction, commitment, need for recovery) among the voluntary and paid workers in 2004 (prior to the changes) and 2007 (after the changes). Response rates were 46.7% in 2005 and 24,7% in 2007. Due to the changes in staffing we were unable to relate the two measures at the individual level, but we were able to compare at the job level. We also conducted additional interviews for background information on the quantitative results.
Our results show that the work characteristics, and as a result job satisfaction, deteriorated significantly for voluntary as well as paid workers. The focus on more commercial activities (more profit driven) and the resulting job structure resulted in a stronger focus on accountability. For voluntary workers this resulted in increased role ambiguity, especially since feedback and social support from superiors decreased as a result of the new structure.
For paid workers, being involved in planning and management, the changes resulted in additional workload. Being responsible for a team’s performance, the paid workers have to spend more effort in acquiring new projects and funding. For most volunteers the job content did not change; they are still mostly involved in advising and helping refuges and immigrants. They are also mostly intrinsically motivated by this aspect of the work. The paid workers are also mostly motivated by offering help to people in need, but their responsibilities require them to spend more time on commercial activities. They find it especially difficult to get access to the funding authorities in the Municipalities. The questionnaire results show, and all workers agreed, that the changes affected the work of paid workers more than the volunteers’ work. Especially in the two newly created paid jobs to meet the commercial requirements, there is an imbalance between job demands and decision latitude resulting in higher job dissatisfaction.
As a result, our study shows that the organizational change in this organization has different effects on the voluntary and paid workers. Most important explanation is that the work responsibilities and work expectations are different for voluntary and paid workers. Therefore, organizational changes affect paid workers more than they affect voluntary workers.
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Introduction
Modern societies rely to an important extent on voluntarism and voluntary associations to serve communities in tangible ways (Li and Ferraro, 2006). Especially in North European countries volunteers contribute to a more civil society (Erlinghagen and Hank, 2006). According to Statistics Netherlands (van Herten, 2008) 5.6 million Dutch (44% of the Dutch adults) were involved in voluntary work in 2007. Dutch volunteers’ contribution to the GDP was 4.7% in
2002. The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project reports that this is the relatively largest contribution in their comparative study among 35 countries.
As voluntary associations and nonprofit organizations, but also some profit organizations, rely heavily on the effort of volunteers, it is important to monitor and increase volunteers’ job satisfaction. Based on an extensive literature review Borzaga and Tortia (2006) report generally higher levels of job satisfaction and motivation in non-profit organizations, including voluntary associations, than in profit organizations, despite lower salaries, personnel shortages and high levels of workload. However, voluntary associations are increasingly being faced with organizational changes as a result of a stronger focus on the quality of their services. There is a trend that non-profit organizations are being asked and required to be more business-like in their operations and attitude (Dart, 2004), for instance as a result of changes in legislation and funding.
Non-profit organizations are exhorted to pay more attention on fund raising, the competition,
(social) innovations, efficiency, and cost reduction. Shoham et al. (2006) show that voluntary associations increasingly use business-like strategies to improve their performance.
These developments cause non-profit organizations (hence, also voluntary associations) to change their strategy, organization, attitude and way of working. As a result the determinants of job satisfaction change. Noblet et al. (2006) studied the effects of using more resultsoriented private sector strategies, also referred to as New Public Management strategies, in public sector organizations. They conclude that these strategies caused structural, procedural and cultural changes that resulted in decreased job satisfaction. In addition, Field and Johnson
(1993) found that commercialization of voluntary associations results in conflicting feelings among volunteers: being more responsible for and focused on fund raising conflicts with the intrinsic motivation of voluntary workers to serve community in general, or especially people in need.
There is an abundance of literature on the effects of organizational change on job satisfaction of paid workers in profit organizations (e.g. Mack et al., 1998; Svensen et al., 2007). There are also studies focusing on job satisfaction of paid workers in non-profit organizations, such as municipalities or health care institutions (e.g. Field and Johnson, 1993; Korunka et al., 2007), however there is little research about the effects of organizational change on job satisfaction of volunteers in a voluntary association. According to Dart (2004) there is evidence that nonprofit organizations do change, but that there is a lack of research on the effects of these changes.
In this paper, we study the effects of organizational change on voluntary and paid workers’ job satisfaction in an organization in the voluntary sector (as a specific kind of non-profit organiza-
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tion): a regional department of the Dutch Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (SVMG).
Due to changing market conditions (e.g. changes in government’s policy towards refugees and funding of the Committee), organizational change was necessary in order to become an effective, efficient and flexible market party. The changes that took place consisted of organizational growth (by merging with other regional departments), organizational downsizing (by closing some of the local offices), and organizational redesign (new job structure).
This paper will proceed as follows. First, we present the case study. Then we present a literature overview to formulate a hypothesis for the relationship between organizational change and job satisfaction for voluntary and paid workers. This will be followed by the methodology of this study, its results and, finally the discussion and conclusions.
Case: a regional department of the Dutch Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
The regional department of the Dutch Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (SVMG) employs about 570 voluntary and 70 paid workers to address the needs and rights of refugees and immigrants in 25 Municipalities in the central-eastern part of the Netherlands by facilitating and providing direct professional services (e.g. help with asylum procedures), and promoting the full participation of migrants in community life. Due to changes in legislation and funding,
SVMG had to change its strategy in order to stay profitable. Formerly, municipalities were the main sponsors. They agreed on yearly contracts for all services regarding all refugees and immigrants. However, the number of immigrants dropped significantly over the last couple of years, and the funding changed. In the new situation, SVMG needs to compete with other providers of certain specific services, because municipalities can ask smaller and special services aimed at individuals or small groups. These environmental changes resulted in a decrease in income for SVMG. Therefore they decided on a reorganization.
First, by mergers with other regional departments of the Dutch Committee for Refugees and
Immigrants, SVMG increased its geographical service area. This resulted in additional local offices. These were reorganized into four regions reporting to the central office, rather than all individual offices. Besides, some offices – old and newly acquired – were closed. Regarding the staffing of these offices, the employees per region were expected to be employable in every office in that region. As result, although the number of offices and the number of voluntary workers in SVMG increased, the number of managers and support staff (mainly paid workers) decreased (see also Table 1). Therefore, organizational growth and downsizing were realized simultaneously.
A second feature of the reorganization was the changed focus on accountability, efficiency and more business-like attitude of the employees. Due to market developments, SVMG had to compete with other suppliers and actively acquire assignments and funding. Moreover, services needed to be customized for specific assignments, rather than supplying standard services to large groups of immigrants. In order to create specialized jobs aimed at acquiring assignments and product development, and to manage the growing number of offices and voluntary workers, SVMG decided to change its job structure, particularly for the paid workers. Paid workers are responsible for most of the managerial and supporting positions in SVMG. The previously eleven local managers were replaced by four regional managers with a larger span of control and more responsibilities. Next to this, the integrated tasks of the previous job of ‘work super-
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visor’ were divided over two new jobs: ‘supervisor of volunteers’ and ‘integration consultant’.
These jobs are more specialized than the old job, because of the increased responsibilities regarding supervision, funding and product development.
Organizational change and job satisfaction
Being one of the most frequently studied concepts, there is an abundance of literature about job satisfaction (Locke, 1976, Judge et al., 2001). There is general consensus that job satisfaction is influenced by a combination of job characteristics (role ambiguity, skill variety), individual
(age, work values) and organizational characteristics (leadership, organizational age) (e.g.
Glisson and Durick, 1988; Kalleberg 1977). Organizational change and reorganizations may influence job and organizational characteristics and, as a result, job satisfaction. According to
Mack et al. (1998), organizational change causes employees to alter their ways of working.
Based on their research Mack et al. conclude that, in general, organizational changes result in increasing levels of job dissatisfaction, mainly as a result of increased uncertainty during the process of change. However, many scholars present different relationships between organizational change and job satisfaction. Main reason for this is the wide variety of organizational changes being studied. Organizational change can take different forms: reorganizing the work practices, job redesign, organizational growth, organizational downsizing. Moreover, while some changes affect the entire organization, other changes affect only specific divisions, teams or jobs.
The organizational change in our study is very complex as it involves organizational downsizing, growth, job redesign and a change in organizational strategy, focusing on more businesslike behaviour. These different changes may affect job satisfaction differently.
The effect of organizational downsizing depends on workers’ previous experiences with similar changes. According to Svensen et al. (2007) job satisfaction will decrease if previous experiences with downsizing are negative. On the other hand, if previous experiences are positive this decrease in job satisfaction will not occur. Cross and Travaglione (2004) argue that organizational downsizing will result in higher levels of job satisfaction as the remaining employees will be happier than those who left. An important assumption here is that the least satisfied employees will (have to) leave the organization, which is not necessarily true in all organizational downsizing processes.
With regard to work characteristics, organizational downsizing results in increasing levels of work load when the same work has to be carried out by less employees. Following Karasek’s model (1979), increasing work loads (job demands) with the same amount of decision latitude will result in lower levels of job satisfaction.
Organizational growth (resulting in growing numbers of employees) in general results in decreasing levels of job satisfaction (Beer, 1964). Organizational growth often results in many other (organizational) changes in, for example leadership styles, organizational structure and employees’ attitudes that have negative effects on job satisfaction. Based on an extensive literature review Beer (1964) concludes that larger organizations report lower levels of job satisfaction. Based on Karasek’s model, more formalization and a larger distance towards colleagues
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and superiors decrease the levels of decision latitude, resulting in decreasing job satisfaction.
Field and Johnson (1993) studied the effects of organizational growth in a voluntary association, mainly employing volunteers, that grew from a single location small firm to a large organization operating from several different locations. The growth process involved incorporating more bureaucratic processes to manage the work processes and employees (including the volunteers), resulting in demotivation and lower levels of commitment. These concepts correlate with job satisfaction (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). Another important finding in Field and Johnson’s case was that the changes heavily affected the volunteers’ work, but the volunteers were not involved in any decision making resulting in reduced commitment among the volunteers.
Job design is one of the main determinants of job satisfaction (Humphrey et al., 2007). Important models indicating this relationship include the Job demand – Decision latitude model
(Karasek, 1979), the Job Characteristics Model (Hackman and Oldham, 1980), and the Job
Demands Resources model (Demerouti et al., 2001). Salancik and Pfeffer (1978) and Griffin
(1991) show that job redesign results in improved job satisfaction when the job redesign results in an improved fit between job characteristics and employee needs or expectations. According to Karasek (1979) job redesign results in increased job satisfaction when decision latitude increases. Increased levels of job satisfaction occur directly after the redesign process after which it stabilizes or declines to previous levels (Griffin, 1991). In an experiment by Hackman et al.
(described in Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978) job satisfaction was measured before and after job redesign. Three kinds of job ‘redesign’ were conducted: job enrichment, no change, and reduction of job variety. The results were positive for all three kinds of changes: after the redesign process job satisfaction was higher than before. Salancik and Pfeffer conclude that the workers’ expectations were already focussed towards the changing work characteristics and, therefore, influenced the workers’ expectations. They suggest that focussing on the dissatisfying work characteristics may have a positive effect on the experience of changing these characteristics. This is also known as the Hawthorne effect (see e.g. Blumberg, 1968: 14-46). Based on these theories, we conclude that job redesign positively influences job satisfaction when it meets at least one of two characteristics: first job satisfaction increases if the job characteristics fit, second job satisfaction increases if the redesign process is aimed at changing dissatisfying work characteristics. The first characteristic results in the most sustainable increase in job satisfaction.
An organizational change aimed at a more business-like attitude requires a major transformation of the organizational culture (Gebhart et al., 2006). This will affect worker motivation and cooperation between workers. Noblet et al. (2006) showed that introducing private sector management strategies in public sector organizations resulted in structural, cultural and procedural changes that had negative effects on job satisfaction. Especially the focus on fund raising and accountability results in mixed feelings among volunteers as they are mostly intrinsically motivated to help people in need, not by efficiency (Field and Johnson, 1993).
In conclusion, the relation between organizational change and job satisfaction is miscellaneous.
Different kinds of organizational change have different effects on job satisfaction. However, it is clear that work characteristics and the perception of these characteristics or the change mediate the relationship between organizational change and job satisfaction.
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Voluntary and paid workers
As mentioned before, workers’ perception of organizational changes of work characteristics differ with the worker’s attitudes and work motivation. There is evidence that voluntary and paid workers have different motivations for working (Hwang et al., 2005). Voluntary workers are driven by a diversity of benefits to be achieved: “making a contribution, a sense of achievement, spending time in a constructive way, getting out of the house, and seeing things from another perspective” (Field and Johnson, 1993: 1626). Paid workers are dependent on the organization they work for for their income. Therefore, salary is a means to affect a paid worker’s motivation. As a result, voluntary workers can leave the organization without any financial consequence. Being less motivated by financial arguments also means that voluntary workers are less keen to adhere to efficiency improvements when they are not necessary to reach the goal of contributing to society (as perceived by the voluntary workers). Wilson and Musick
(1999) show that job dissatisfaction of volunteers does not affect their intention to leave the organization. Their altruistic behaviour prevails the importance of the work characteristics; helping people in need is more important than a proper work organization or good terms of employment.
Next to differences in work motivation, paid and voluntary workers also differ regarding job content and job contract (amount of working hours). In voluntary associations volunteers are responsible for conducting the core tasks or processes (such as helping people in need). Paid workers are more often responsible for managing and coordinating tasks (van Beveren, 2004).
According to De Witte (2001) job level correlates with job satisfaction; employees in jobs with more managing tasks are more satisfied than those in jobs that consist of executing tasks only
(Svensen et al., 2007; Coomber and Barribal, 2007; Nguni, 2005).
Related to this is the difference in the amount of working hours. Paid workers, being dependent on the organization for their income and having more responsible tasks, often work more hours per week. As a result, changes in work characteristics have a stronger impact on paid workers’ job satisfaction than on voluntary workers. Moreover, as it is mainly the paid workers’ responsibility to become more market-oriented, the changes will affect the paid workers more than the volunteers. Based on these arguments we pose the following hypothesis to test in the empirical research:
Hypothesis : organizational change has a greater impact on paid workers’ job satisfaction than on volunteers’ job satisfaction.
Besides, we expect to find differences in the levels of job satisfaction of paid and voluntary workers, because of the differences in work motivation, amount of working hours and responsibilities at work (as visible in differences in work characteristics; Hwang et al., 2005; Field and Johnson, 1993).
Method
To test our hypothesis we compared the results of two measurements of job satisfaction and its major job related antecedents at SVMG; before and after the changes. The first measurement took place in 2004. The changes occurred in the period from 2005 to 2006 and after this the organization wanted us to repeat the 2004 measurement in 2007.
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Organizational change
Information about the character of the organizational changes was gathered in a qualitative way. We studied several documents, such as the annual report of 2005 (SVMG, 2006a), the reorganization plan (SVMG, 2006b), and an evaluation report (Loenen, 2007). We also joined an evaluation meeting with paid and voluntary workers in June 2007. Furthermore, we interviewed two HRM staff members about the various changes in the organization and job characteristics. From these diverse sources, management as well as employees, we got a balanced picture of the actual changes in the period between 2004 and 2007.
Job characteristics and job satisfaction
For measuring the job characteristics and job satisfaction of paid and voluntary workers in
2004 and 2007, we used the same extended questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of scales from existing and frequently used validated Dutch questionnaires for measuring job characteristics, work values, and the consequences for workers. We used scales from the NO-
VA-WEBA (Dhondt and Houtman, 1996) and VBBA questionnaires (Van Veldhoven et al.,
2002). For this study we used measures on job characteristics (as important antecedents of job satisfaction) and job satisfaction.
For additional qualitative information we also analyzed the responses to the final open question of the questionnaire. We asked whether the respondents had any remarks or suggestions regarding this research or its contents. In 2007, 48 respondents answered this final question. Following Garcia et al. (2004) we coded these answers into five categories: (1) explanation of the answers of the multiple choice questions; (2) examples of the subjects of the questionnaire; (3) new or different subjects, that were not in the questionnaire; (4) remarks on the research method; (5) ideas to develop and improve the questionnaire.
Finally, we also conducted interviews with paid and voluntary workers in order to generate valid interpretations for the results. We used the questionnaire results as input for these interviews.
Job characteristics . Job characteristics can be divided into four aspects of work: job content, work relations (social support), working conditions, and terms of employment. Job content is based on Karasek’s model (1979) and was measured as the balance between job demands and decision latitude. Job demands include work load, emotional stress, complexity of the work, and task changes. Decision latitude includes autonomy and organizing tasks. Furthermore, measuring job variety, we used Hacker’s concept of complete tasks (Hacker, 1989) as a dimension of job content.
Work relations were measured as interaction potential and the respondents’ relationships with colleagues and superiors. These are considered important resources to deal with stressful jobs
(Karasek and Theorell, 19990; Demerouti et al., 2001).
Working conditions include the physical conditions under which the work needs to be done.
These include temperature, noise, light intensity, and workplace design.
Finally, terms of employment include pay, working time arrangements, and career opportunities.
All job characteristics scales consist of two-scale items (yes or no) measuring whether a certain job condition is applicable or not. Chronbach’s alphas yielded sufficient scores (>.7) for all scales, except terms of employment. As a result, we had to leave this scale out of our analyses.
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Job satisfaction . Being one of the most investigated topics in the fields of sociology, industrial psychology and organizational behavior; job satisfaction can be defined as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences (Locke,
1976). Most scholars recognize that job satisfaction is a global concept that also comprises various facets (Judge et al., 2001). These facets include pay, promotions, co-workers, supervision, the work itself, recognition, working conditions, and company and management. For this study a measure for overall job satisfaction (global concept) was used, as well as facetted measures for satisfaction with job content, work relations, and terms of employment. For overall job satisfaction we used a validated scale from the frequently used and elaborately tested Dutch questionnaire VBBA (Van Veldhoven, 1996). This was measured at a 4-point Likert scale. For satisfaction with job content, work relations, and terms of employment we used scales from a questionnaire aimed at measuring workers’ needs and satisfaction with different job aspects
(Van der Parre, 1996; see also Schouteten, 2001). These aspects were measured at 7-point Likert scales.
Response
In 2004, SVMG employed 69 paid and 359 voluntary workers. In 2007, 67 paid and 573 voluntary workers were employed. For both measurements the questionnaires were sent to all paid and voluntary workers. In 2004 the total response rate was 46.7% (200 respondents: 142 voluntary and 58 paid workers. In 2007 the response was only 20.2% (158 respondents: 116 voluntary and 39 paid workers; see Table 1). The difference in response rates between paid and voluntary workers can be explained by the relatively small amount of working hours per week of voluntary workers, resulting in a lower motivation to participate in this kind of research. Voluntary workers hardly see the benefit of improving the job characteristics as they are barely affected by them. This might also explain the drop in response rates from 2004 to 2007: the workers did not or hardly benefit from the first measurement. Therefore they refused to fill out the questionnaire again. Moreover, this questionnaire could be viewed as another attempt of management to hinder the primary process (help people in need).
We were unable to link the results from 2004 and 2007 at the individual level. Therefore, the study lacks a proper longitudinal design. However, comparing the results at job or division level generates interesting and insightful results about the effect of the organizational changes on job satisfaction.
Results
We conducted ANOVA-analysis to determine whether there are differences in the job characteristics and job satisfaction scores between 2004 and 2007 and between voluntary and paid workers (see Table 1). Table 1 shows the mean scores for the entire organization in 2004 and
2007 and for voluntary and paid workers separately in both years. All scores, except the faceted satisfaction scores, range from 0 to 1. The faceted satisfaction scores range from 1 to 7. Being investigated in terms of risk evaluation a high score indicates a risk and a low score indicates a desirable situation concerning that aspect of work.
Table 1: ANOVA-analysis: total organization, volunteers and paid employees
Scale Total score Volunteers Paid Employees
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2004 2007 2004 2007 2004 2007
Number of employees
Number of respondents
(percentage)
Job satisfaction
Overall Job satisfaction
Satisfaction with job content
Satisfaction with work relations
Satisfaction with terms of employment
Characteristics of the work
Job complexity
Work variety
Completeness of the work
Interaction potential
Work Organization
Autonomy
Organizing tasks
Information
Task changes
Workload
Emotional stress
Executives & colleagues
Physical working conditions n.a.
.51
.35
.26
.26*
.23*
573
116
(20%)
.46*
2.88
2.74*
.18
.58*
.21
.24
.22*
.13
.16
.13 n.a.
.49
.38
.31
.18
.15
359
142
(40%)
.07
2.72
2.29
.16
.38
.19
.20
.16
.13
.11
.10
3.19
.56
.36
.23
.27*
.28*
640
158
(25%)
.45*
2.92
2.97*
.17
.50*
.25*
.28*
.31*
.12
.22*
.12
3.05
.53
.38
.26
.18
.17
428
200
(47%)
.08
2.77
2.39
.15
.32
.19
.24
.24
.13
.12
.12
Physical strain .07 .08 .06 .07 .10 .11
* There is a significant difference found between the scores of 2004 and 2007 from the same group (ttest, p < .05).
The significant differences between volunteers and paid employees on a certain scale in the same year are italicized.
Table 1 shows that satisfaction deteriorated between 2004 and 2007 (i.e. the scores are higher, indicating more dissatisfaction). Especially overall job dissatisfaction increased significantly.
Job satisfaction percentages of 70-80 % are regularly found (De Sitter, 1998), but in 2007
SVMG job satisfaction dropped from 92% in 2004 to “only” 55% in 2007. This is a first indication that the organizational changes had a negative effect on the paid and voluntary workers.
Regarding the work characteristics we see that the significant differences between 2004 and
2007 indicate more risks concerning interaction potential, work organization, organizing tasks, information provision, task changes, workload, and the relationships with colleagues and executives. The growth of the organization (more offices and more voluntary workers) and the changed management structure resulted in a greater distance between colleagues and supervisors. This resulted in problems regarding the work organization and possibilities to confer with colleagues and supervisors (in case of problems or queries). The longer communication lines also result in more problems regarding information provision. Another problem after the changes is that workers work at different locations. Besides the fact that voluntary workers only work for a couple of hours per week, this enhances communication problems, resulting in the poorer results on interaction potential, work organization, information and the relationships with colleagues and executives.
3.05
.65
.38
.18
.16
.23
69
58
(84%)
.11
2.86
2.59
.13
.17
.17
.31
.46
.13
.12
.17
3.19
.70
.36
.15
.27*
.44*
67
39
(58%)
.44*
3.03
3.66*
.12
.27
.37*
.40*
.58*
.08*
.41*
.09*
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These scores indicate that the decision latitude (control capacity) decreased, whereas job demands did not decrease. As a result, work load for all workers increased significantly between
2004 and 2007.
Table 1 also shows significant differences between voluntary and paid workers. Paid workers are employed in more responsible jobs, resulting in higher job complexity, more complete jobs
(less monotony), and more organizing tasks, but also resulting in more work load and more task changes. These differences are mainly caused by the fact that paid workers work more hours per week
1
and have more management tasks. Working more hours per week implies a greater visibility at the workplace and, therefore, more eligibility to conduct management tasks
(be more responsible for work performance of a team). These tasks are more challenging and offer more job control, but they are also more demanding, resulting in higher levels of work load.
With regard to the organizational changes, we see that the changes in management and job structure affected the paid workers more than the voluntary workers. Being responsible for (the work) of more volunteers in more locations and being more dependent on the proper information and flawless work organization, the changes had a major effect on paid workers’ problems with work organization, relationships with executives and colleagues (more geographically dispersed) and work load. We can also see that the changes in job structure affected the paid workers’ jobs more than the voluntary jobs. The disintegration of supervising and marketing tasks over two new jobs affected mainly the paid workers.
Finally, we also see different levels of facetted job satisfaction for paid and voluntary workers.
However, the level of overall job satisfaction is similar. Voluntary workers are significantly more satisfied with work relations than paid workers. They are also more satisfied with job content, but this difference is not significant. These differences can partly be explained by the differences in work characteristics as discussed above. Partly, however, this can be explained by differences in work motivation. Whereas the voluntary workers are mainly motivated by the ideological aspects of the work, the paid workers are much more affected by the work characteristics because they spend much more time per week at work. For their job satisfaction, for most voluntary workers it is sufficient to help people in need. The paid workers are also mostly motivated by offering help to people in need, but their responsibilities require them to confer more with colleagues and executives and to spend more time on commercial activities. Therefore, the work characteristics related to communication and interaction are important, as well as work characteristics related to work load are important determinants of job satisfaction.
They find it especially difficult to get access to the funding authorities in the Municipalities.
Nevertheless, overall job satisfaction decreased significantly for both groups as a result of the organizational changes.
These results from the questionnaire data are corroborated by the interview data. The overall tendency was that both paid and voluntary workers think that as a result of the changes in the organization the communication and choices of management are not optimal and that this affects job satisfaction. According to the respondents, the relation between managers and employees needs improvement because it deteriorated since 2004. Moreover, the respondents are afraid of increased turnover rates when the current tendencies continue. The employees feel that the flexibility of work location and the lack of a solid base are the main causes of the cur-
1 On average, paid workers work 24.6 hours per week and voluntary workers 8.7 hours per week.
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rent communication problems. This is visible in vagueness and ambiguities about the responsibilities on the different locations. There are fewer employees present, and the present crew differs by day. Employees do not know each other anymore, especially when they are working in different regions. There are just a few organized interaction moments between volunteers, paid employees and management, which results in difficulties with fine-tuning and communications about important decisions concerning the services towards clients (people who need help).
Another opinion we found during the interviews, is that the new commercial way of working has an impact on the daily work of both groups. They all need to justify their time and make their performance more noticeable (focus on accountability). However, all interviewed (paid and voluntary) workers agreed, that the changes affected the work of paid workers more than the volunteers’ work. There has not been much change in the job content of the voluntary workers. Paid workers, however, feel more pressure to acquire funding and to conduct sales activities. Especially in the two newly created paid jobs to meet the commercial requirements, there is an imbalance between job demands and decision latitude resulting in higher levels of job dissatisfaction. They emphasize that they do not have any knowledge, skills or experience yet in this area. And this makes their work more demanding.
Finally, the interviewees agree that the entire organization needs to have a different culture for coping with the changes resulting of a more commercial view on work. This change is not yet embedded in the organization.
Conclusion
Our study shows that organizational change has a different effect on paid and voluntary workers in the same organization. Although overall job satisfaction scores show similar results for both groups, the faceted satisfaction scores differ significantly. The reasons for this can be found in:
the different changes that have different effects on paid and voluntary workers’ work
the differences between work motivations of paid and voluntary workers.
The diversity and complexity of the organizational changes in our case study requires a nuanced interpretation of our results. It is very difficult to disentangle the effects of the different changes that took place: organizational downsizing, organizational growth, job redesign and the introduction of a more business like behavior. These changes are interlinked and affect each other mutually. However, our results show that the changes concerning the work organization and management structure (as a result of growth, downsizing and job redesign) affect the paid workers most. Paid workers are employed in the most responsible jobs (most management and supervising tasks) and they work most hours per week. Being responsible for the organization of work, the teams’ performances, and funding, changes in these aspects of the work affect the paid workers’ job satisfaction scores. In this case the work characteristics changed in a negative way and so did the job satisfaction levels. This is best visible in the changes in the (satisfaction with) work relations. Being responsible, for paid workers these relations are more important than for voluntary workers. The deterioration in these work characteristics affects the job satisfaction with work relations (on which facet paid and voluntary worker differ significantly after the changes).
Another explanation for the differences between paid and voluntary workers can be found in the differences in work motivations. Working for only a couple of hours per week and being
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mostly motivated through the ideological principles of the organization (helping people in need), the voluntary workers’ levels of job satisfaction are less affected by the changes in work characteristics. In this case the volunteers were affected by the changing focus on accountability and efficiency – they felt it undermined the primary process of helping people in need – but it did not or hardly change the job content. Paid workers are also mainly motivated by the ideological principles, but their responsibilities require them to adhere more to the organizational particularities. Moreover, for paid workers this job is the main source of income, meaning that they cannot quit without costs.
As a result, this study confirms the literature pointing at the differences in attitudes and work motivations between voluntary and paid workers (e.g. Hwang et al., 2005; Field and Johnson,
1993). Our study shows that even in the same organization these differences between paid and voluntary workers exist. However, the differences in job satisfaction levels are not only a result of the differences in the workers’ work attitudes and motivation; the differences can also be explained by looking at the differences in work characteristics.
With regard to the effect of organizational change on job satisfaction, our study shows that it depends on the kind of change and the way it is executed whether job satisfaction will increase or not. Our study and the changes in the organization are too complex to draw generic conclusions, but in this case we can falsify the idea that any change in the job will lead to a (shortlived) increase in job satisfaction.
The complexity and interrelatedness of the organizational changes and the lack of a proper longitudinal design incline us to be careful in our conclusions. Further longitudinal research in voluntary associations with paid and voluntary workers is necessary to found our results. It would be interesting to isolate the different organizational changes and determine their impact on job satisfaction and its determinants.
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