On 1 December 2017 a workshop entitled “From Job Insecurity to Job Satisfaction, High Quality Education and Career Success” will be hosted at the North-West University’s (NWU’s) campus in Vanderbijlpark, and practitioners, researchers and students are invited to take part in the dialogue. The workshop forms part of a larger research project being conducted by Optentia.
Four international experts will be the keynote speakers at the workshop:
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Prof Hans De Witte |
KU Leuven, Belgium (Extraordinary professor at Optentia) |
Latest research developments as it pertains to job insecurity within the Belgium context |
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Prof Lixin Jiang |
University of Auckland, New Zealand |
Empirical efforts in search for possible interventions |
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Prof Haijian Wang |
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China |
The concept of regulatory focus as a potential coping mechanism when experiencing job insecurity |
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Dr Tahira M Probst |
Washington State University, Vancouver, USA |
The implications of job insecurity on different levels, ranging from the workplace to national contexts |
These lectures will be followed by a moderated discussion among all attendees on the respective implications for the higher education sector in general and for South Africa in particular.
Register for the workshop today
Human resource practitioners, researchers and students are invited to attend this workshop. Visit the Optentia website for more information about the research project and to reserve a seat (limited seating available) for the workshop that will be presented on 1 December 2017.
Workshop to link with current international research project
The workshop links closely with a current international research project in which Optentia plays an active part. The project, focusing on job insecurity, sees South Africa collaborating with Namibia, the UK, US, China, Brazil, Greece, Belgium, Romania, and Lithuania. The participating researchers from Optentia include Dr Lara Roll, Prof Hans De Witte and Prof Ian Rothmann.
Each of the participating countries are currently facing political and/or economic challenges directly affecting university staff. While each university faces unique challenges symptomatic of their environment and circumstance, all share a common result: the rise of job insecurity among their staff members.
The project will investigate job insecurity in higher education during political and economic turmoil across the 10 project countries by gathering data to compare the state of job insecurity in the higher education sector. The aim is to enhance the understanding of job insecurity and provide evidence-based insights into effective coping mechanisms that will benefit human resource practitioners, management and employees.
In South Africa a recent report indicated that nearly 37% of academics have common mental health disorders, and among postgraduate students more than 40% report symptoms of depression and high levels of emotional or stress-related problems. Contributing factors include the continued political turmoil in South Africa, a growing sense of job insecurity at tertiary education institutions due to events such as the #FeesMustFall movement, and South Africa’s declining economic environment.
The negative impact of job insecurity is not limited to the fear of losing one’s job, but extends to the prospect of possibly losing valued job aspects.
