Applying for your own job: a preliminary study

Australian Journal of Career Development, Autumn, 2008 by Elizabeth Reid Boyd

This study undertook a small preliminary investigation of the contemporary employment practice of 'applying for your own job'. There has not yet been a specific study into the effect upon individuals and organisations of the practice of existing employees being required to apply for the same or a similar position in a competitive application context, while continuing to work in the organisation. This project addressed this and examined the self-reported personal effects of this process (social, emotional, psychological and physical) through qualitative interviews with 16 individuals who have experienced it. It found significant negative self-reported effects, including stress, clinical depression, ill health, time off work and detrimental working conditions. It was also found that there are longer term impacts upon the organisational environment and employee attitudes whether the employee is successful or not.

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The aim of this qualitative study was an investigation of the experience of the contemporary practice of 'applying for your own job' for 16 public sector employees in Western Australia. This study was prompted by anecdotal evidence from members of the 'tenuous periphery' in Australian universities seeking 'tenured core' positions (Kimber, 2003). Further anecdotal evidence suggested that 'applying for your own job' was also common in the public service in state and local government employment, especially in the context of acting in a position and then applying for it contractually or permanently. This small study there fore included both university and state and local government employees.

Participants were deemed eligible for the study if they had applied for what they considered to be their 'own job', in that they already held the same or a similar position within the organisation and continued to work in the organisation during a formal, competitive application process. The circumstances in which this was likely to occur included: being contract staff and applying for another contract or a permanent or ongoing position; acting in a position and applying for that position; or applying/re-applying for a position following an organisational restructure or other organisational change. For those in these circumstances the positions that they were held against, had acted in, were in contract under or casually employed as were not technically considered to be their 'own job' by their employers, and general human resource rules and employment policies were usually applied. The phrase 'applying for your own job', however, while not necessarily technically correct, is one used colloquially in Australia and by study participants, and was a useful touchstone for this research, not least because it highlights the problematic identified and experienced by participants.

While individual experiences varied, the participants in this study were set apart from other job seekers in an application process because they applied for employment from within an organisation, rather than from without. While being an incumbent in a position, acting in a position, or already being employed in an organisation may be seen as advantageous in an application process (as was suggested by one participant in this study) it was found here that there are adverse effects upon the individuals involved. For the existing employee, success or failure in an application process is not measured by a change of state to employment but instead, by a potential change of state to unemployment. The generally negative mental health effects of unemployment or its prospect are widely known (Ezzy, 2001). As such, in an application process, while both an outsider applicant and an insider applicant face job gain, only the insider may face job loss, and as one respondent recounted, this threat was stressful. Similarly, for an employee acting in a position, success equals promotion; failure is effectively demotion. This study served to explore the experiences of individuals in these situations.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Loyalty to an organisation and a job for life were hallmarks of employment in the mid 20th century, especially in the public service. Colloquial wisdom has been that those working in the public sector traded pay for job security; higher salaries were paid in the private sector due to its volatility. In the last two decades, the casualisation of the workforce has altered this dramatically, to the extent that it has been argued that the psychological contract between employers and employees is being rewritten (Frenkel, Korczynski, Shire, & Tam, 1999). The effects of casualisation of the workforce have been manifold. Of relevance here are disadvantages to employees including the potential erosion of minimal employment standards, fringe benefits and rights, employment insecurity and a decline in bargaining power (Allan, Brosnan, Horwitz, & Walsh, 2001). With regard to job insecurity, Ferrie, Shipley, Newman, Stansfeld, and Marmot (2005) have pointed out that most studies examining effects of self-reported job insecurity on health, document consistent adverse effects on measures of psychological morbidity, and evidence on other measures of morbidity is starting to accumulate. Their large-scale study of self-reported job insecurity and health of civil servants in Whitehall, London is a case in point, finding strong associations between self-reported job insecurity and both poor self-rated health and minor psychiatric morbidity (Ferrie, Shipley, Newman, Stansfeld, & Marmot, 2005, p. 1). Such findings contextualise this study, though specific research on the effects upon individuals and organisations of the practice of employees being required to apply for a position in a competitive application context while continuing to work on the organisation has not been found to be extant. This study aimed to address this gap and examine the self-reported effects (social, emotional, psycho logical and physical) on individuals who have experienced this process in the last 5 years.