The Devil's Workshop? A Look at the Impact of Idle Time on Newcomers’ Perceptions

Abstract

The essence of a successful job is for an employee to be engaged in performing meaningful tasks. It may not be desirable for the employee to be engaged in tasks which are not valued or to be without any tasks. The impact of “idle time”, a period where there is no meaningful task assigned to the employee, is relatively under-researched in spite of its significance. The current study uses longitudinal data from a total of 304 newcomers in an Indian information technology services organization during their early socialization. The data shows a marked decrease in the employees’ psychological contract fulfilment and in organizational identification, as well as a decrease in perceived organizational prestige, during the period of the study. Further, the study shows that the decrease in psychological contract fulfilment was highly significant in the employees who were idle. These findings highlight the criticality of idle time on newcomers’ initial attitudes.