The psychological contract of designated and non–designated groups in a financial institution

Abstract

Due to socio-political transformation, South Africa has been subjected to dramatic changes that influenced employment relationships, employment contracts between employees and employers arid the psychological contract of employees. Due to all these socio-political changes different groups of employees experience differences in their psychological contracts and have certain expectations that their organisation should fulfil. The general objective of this research is to determine the psychological contract of designated and non-designated groups of a banking institution in the North West Province. A cross-sectional survey design was used to collect the data and reach the objectives of this study. Stratified random sample (n = 131) was taken from permanently appointed designated and non-designated employees of different branches in a South African banking institution in the North West Province. A structured, self-completion questionnaire was used to collect the data. The Psycones Questionnaire and discrimination and affirmative action questions were selected from different existing questionnaires and were used to compile the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics (e.g. means, standard deviations, skewness and kurtosis) were used to analyse the data. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were used to assess the relationships between the variables. Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate the effects of the variables in this study, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed to assess the differences in the experience of affirmative action policies of demographic groups. Item-level analysis is performed by using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results indicated that designated and non-designated groups of employees do not experience a difference in their breach or violation of their psychological contracts when affirmative action policies are correctly implemented and communicated. Based on the findings of this study organisations are advised to ensure that affirmative action policies are implemented correctly and communicated to all groups of employees, and then designated and non-designated employees would not differ in their experience of violation in their psychological contracts. Limitations in the research are identified and recommendations were made.