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Authors: Pedro Ferreira, Carla Gabriel
Keywords: work values, employer attractiveness, generations, millennials
Abstract: Purpose: Work values are considered one important aspect to take into account when it comes to understand individuals’ work related preferences, attitudes, decisions and behaviours (Dawis, 1991), namely shaping career decisions and choices (e.g. Judge & Bretz, 1992; Rounds & Jin, 2013). Work values can be defined as a set of beliefs about what is desirable at work (Lyons, Higgins, & Duxbury, 2010), but also as a manifestation of the needs and expectations that individuals try to satisfy through their work (Locke, 1976; (Ros, Schwartz, & Surkiss, 1999; Super and Sverko, 1995). Generational issues have been one of the most prominent organizational and labour market issues of the last decades. Special attention has been devoted to the so-called millennial generation, those born between 1980 and 1999. This generation is considered to have specific characteristics, which makes it very different from previous generations. Several studies (Lyons, Ng, & Schweitzer, 2012; Ng, Schweitzer, & Lyons, 2010; Twenge, Campbell, Hoffman, & Lance, 2010) confirm that to some extent millennials share a different set of values and expectations regarding their work-life. Following these assumptions, different values will lead to different expectations, decisions and behaviours, and as a consequence, companies need to adapt their attraction and retention practices in order to meet millennials’ expectations and needs. Based on the work values and generational literature, the goal of this paper is to contribute to this discussion by examining if and how work values influence the attractiveness of employees. Design /Methodology/ Approach: The study follows a quantitative approach. The main constructs were assessed using validated measurements. Work values follows the set of values proposed by Papavasileiou and Lyons (2015), and employer attractiveness was measured using the Emp-At scale proposed by Berthon, Ewing and Hah (2005). Participants in the study were full-time university students from business and economics related degrees, born between 1995 and 1999. The questionnaire had three sections (work values, employer of choice, and socio-demographic information) and was administered face-to-face. Hypotheses were tested using regression analysis. Findings: The results show that the most prominent work values are Progression (X=5.43), Stability (X=5.38), Earnings (X=5.25), Benefits and Interaction (X=5.13). The findings also reveal that some work values have a positive influence on employer attractiveness, namely “innovation”, “progression”, “ownership”, and “skills’ use”. On the contrary, “earnings” has a negative influence on employer attractiveness. Research limitations/implications: Data collected in a university and from a limited set of degrees: Other variables may influence employer attractiveness besides work values. Contribute to understand the “why” they value originality. There is still a lack of understanding of employer attractiveness for millennials, since the literature tends to focus on “the what” they value, instead of looking for “the why” they value. The literature about generations at work, and specifically the study of millennials, is widely concentrated on central countries, such as the USA, Canada or UK (Kuron et al., 2015; Lyons et al., 2012; Maxwell & Broadbridge, 2016; Weber, 2015), which hardly reflects the reality of more peripheral countries, offering a limited (and biased) perspective on this generation.