Learning Activity #1
Using the side bars found in this week’s content tab, along with our reading material, explain how the trends are altering or making job performance harder to manage.
- Be sure to identify in the answer what is meant by job performance.
- Explain how the trend affects performance behavior.
- Identify the challenge the trend has for the manager.
Learning Activity #2
Using the side bars found in this week’s content tab, along with our reading material, explain how the trends are altering or making job commitment harder to manage.
- Be sure to identify in the answer what is meant by job commitment.
- Explain how the trend affects job commitment.
- Identify the challenge the trend has for the manager.
Reading material:
By now, you might be asking yourself: Who is responsible for Organizational Behavior in an organization? In a sense, the answer is everyone! Although Organizational Behavior is an area of study, it cuts across all areas of organizational functioning.
Managers in all departments must know how to motivate their employees, how to keep people satisfied with their jobs, how to communicate fairly, how to make teams function effectively, and how to design jobs most effectively. In short, dealing with people at work is everybody’s responsibility. So, no matter what job you do in a company knowing something about Organizational Behavior is sure to help you do it better.
There are two goals every effective organization needs its employees to meet, strong job performance and organizational commitment. Coincidentally, most employees are concerned with two goals in their work life, doing a job well and to remain working for a company that they respect. In the weeks to come we will look at the skills needed by managers to create the behavioral synergy needed between employee and organization to meet the primary goals of employee job performance and commitment. This week we will examine the characteristic behavior that defines “good” job performance and organizational commitment.
THEME # 1: Job Performance: What is it and what is considered good job performance?
We start our discussion this week with job performance. Understanding our own performance behavior is important to every employee and understanding the performance of an employee within their unit or division is critical for managerial success.
Job Performance is formally defined as the value of the set of employee behaviors that contribute either positively or negatively to organizational goal accomplishment. (Coquitt,J., Lepine, J., & Wesson, M., 2013) Defining good and bad performance this way suggest behaviors in the workplace that are within employee control while defining those that are not acceptable. For example, if you were a waiter at a restaurant that prides itself on service and you texted your boyfriend during your break that behavior is not relevant to job performance. However, if you were texting in the kitchen resulting in the delay of food going to the customer’s table the behavior would be performance related. (Coquitt,J., Lepine, J., & Wesson, M., 2013)
This week we examine job performance behaviors and what constitutes good job performance. Generally, relevant job performance behaviors fall in to three categories, task performance and citizenship behavior which contributes to the success of organization positively and counterproductive behavior which affects the organization negatively. Identifying behaviors that fall into these three groups and their relevance to organizational effectiveness will explain why job performance is considered one of the major outcomes in the study of organizational behavior.
Read:
SUB THEME: How do companies use job performance information to assure that employee performance is meeting the organizations mission?
Several of the most popular tools used by management to collect relevant performance information are Management by Objectives, behaviorally anchored rating scales, 360-degree feedback, forced ranking and social networking.
Read:
Decoding Generational Differences
Global Human Capital Trends Pg 65
The Rise of the New Groupthink
THEME # 2: What is Organizational Commitment and how does it relate to employee behavior?
Employee commitment is the bond employees experience with their organization. Employees who are committed to their organization feel they fit in and understand the goals of the organization. (Hoek, J., 2016) The value of these employees is that they tend to be more determined in their work, show relatively high productivity and are proactive in offering their support to organizational endeavors.
The importance of employee commitment to a successful organization is increasing all the time. The pressure that globalization and disruptive technology has placed upon the organization and employee has resulted in fierce competition for customers and talented employees. (Hoek, J., 2016) Notions of employers having lifetime employees and employees who want to stay with a company a lifetime has become outdated.
In addition to the increased competition in the global environment, employees have a stronger sense of individualism. Employees want to look at themselves as individual within the organization rather then subordinate to the organization. (Hoek, J, 2016) Hence, the once expected commitment to the organization is much less of a certainty and makes a committed employee even more important.
This theme examines the importance of committed employees to an organization’s success, the types of employee commitment and the difference between employee commitment and engagement.
Beyond being supportive of the workforce, companies can create activities that seek to focus on the three areas of commitment, affective, continuance and normative. Affective commitment is when the employee wants to stay. Companies like Ben and Jerry hold monthly “joy events. During these events work stop, and the staff hold parties, contests, games etc.”. Monsanto has people teams that put together employee-bonding activities like “snowshoe softball”. Leaders suggest this why they have a voluntary turnover rate of only 3 percent. (Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J., 2013, pg.80)
On the continuance commitment front creating a salary and benefits package that makes people financially compelled to stay is a priority. Continuance commitment is when and employee needs to stay. Studies suggest that pay level and benefits are the strongest predictor of voluntary commitment coming in close is advancement. (Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J., 2013, pg.81)
In the case of normative commitment, or when an employee ought to stay, an employer who provides training and encourages personal development opportunities creates a sense of fealty among employees. For example, IBM keeps a data bank of employee skill and uses half of their training budget to target individual employees for professional development. (Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J., 2013, pg.83)
Read
Actions to complete:
- Read/view the above materials.
- Participate in Week 2 learning activities – Initial Response due by Thursday, follow up response due by Sunday, 11:59 p.m. EST.
References
Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J. (2018). Organizational behavior: Improving performance and commitment in the workplace (2013). Dubuque: McGraw-Hill Education.
Hoek, J. (2016, June 24). What is employee commitment? Retrieved from https://www.effectory.com/knowledge/themes/what-is-employee-commitment/
Table 4. Quits levels and rates by industry and region, seasonally adjusted. (2018, July 06). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t04.htm
