BUILDING EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT AT WORK

‘HRM policies are designed to maximize organizational integration, employee commitment, flexibility and quality of work’.

GUEST D.E

INTRODUCTION

Employees are the backbone of any organisation. They are the drivers of superior organisational performance. Despite the fact that computer and IT have revolutionized the work place, people are still needed to programme and operate the computers in order to get the desirable result.

Low levels of commitment to both the organisation and work have been linked to absenteeism, employee turnover and intention to quit. The success of any organisation in achieving its objectives is dependent on the level of commitment of its employees to both the organisation and its various goals. This shows that building employees’ commitment to the workplace is one important goal of human resource policies and practices.

Organisations that want to remain competitive in a dynamic-complex business environment of today must make building employee commitment at work a top priority.  

THE CONCEPT OF EMPLOYEECOMMITMENT

There is no universal definition of commitment. Authors, researchers and scholars define the concept to suit their interest and purpose. Some common definitions of employee commitment are given below.

1. Commitment is a state of mind in which an individual becomes bound by his actions to beliefs that sustain his activities and his own involvement (Salancik, 1977).
2. Commitment is willingness on the part of individuals to contribute much more to the organisation than their formal contractual obligation (Martin and Nicholas, 1987).
3. Organizational commitment may also be defined as the psychological affiliation of an employee to the organization (Chen et al., 2002).

IMPACT OF EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT

The results of high employee commitment to work and organisation are so numerous. Some of them are listed below.

          i.            Enhanced performance.

        ii.            Increased productivity.

      iii.            Increased employee motivation.

      iv.            Loyalty to the organisation.

        v.            High morale.

      vi.            Job satisfaction.

    vii.            Low turnover and absenteeism.

FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT

There are so many factors that are capable of influencing the level of employee commitment at work, positively. Management should ensure that these factors are put into consideration in designing strategies for eliciting employee commitment at work. These factors include the following.

1. Availability and satisfaction with career opportunities.
2. Excellent relationship with peers, supervisors, and management.
3. Presence of work-life balance.
4. Satisfaction with company performance.
5. Employees’ confidence of their future with the organisation.
6. Opportunities for continuous learning and improvement.
7. Degree of teamwork and cooperation.
8. Employees’ confidence in the future success of the company.
9. Excellent and competitive remuneration policy.
10. Evaluative and objective measures of performance.

BUILDING EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT

Building employee commitment to the workplace is one important goal of human resource policies and practices. Research over the years revealed that commitment has a positive effect on productivity, turnover and willingness to help co-workers.

Several ways of building employee commitment at work include the following.

Fair treatment

 Excellent grievance procedure that guarantees fair treatment of all employees in all grievance and disciplinary matters must be in place.

People first-value    

To build committed workforce organisations should emphasise ideas that portray employees as the most valued assets. Employees must be trusted, treated with respect, involved in making on-the-job decisions, and encouraged to grow and reach their full potential.

 Employment security

Practice lifetime employment without guarantees. Make stable employment and continual improvement of your team members or employees your strategy to obtain the smooth, steady growth of the company. This may be difficult in this era of global economic meltdown induced staff retrenchment. Staff retrenchment must be undertaken with human face. Retrenched employees entitlements must be fully paid. Unless this is done, those left behind will never be committed. All efforts must be geared towards ensuring that employees have confidence in their future with the organisation.

 Excellent Reward package

In addition to offering employees competitive total reward packages, organisations should build a pay plan that encourages employees to think of themselves as partners. This means employees should have healthy share of the profits and downturn during good years and bad years respectively. Stock ownership plan can also be encouraged to make employees major stakeholders in the business.

Value based hiring

Commitment should be embedded in companies’ activities right from start. They must demonstrate to potential employees at the point of entry that, they are organisation committed to employees’ welfare, career progression, learning and growth. Self-selection can also be utilized, exhaustive screening process that requires some sacrifice on the part of the employees should also be encouraged to create a commitment atmosphere.

Build excellent brand and solid reputation

There are some business organisations today that do receive thousands of unsolicited applications due to their image, policies, programmes, ideologies and level of profitability. These are organisations that several millions of people are willing to work in and grow.  Companies like GSK, Shell, IBM, Infosys, and Procter & Gamble consider their ‘employment brand’ and ‘reputation’ as key asset in attracting and retaining skilled, competent, committed and motivated people.

The truth about commitment is that people are more interested in working in well established organisations with global brand and excellent reputation. Build your brand and reputation to build committed workforce.

Strong commitment to training and development

To build commitment, there should be a great emphasis on, and investment in, training and development. There should be a deliberate commitment of significant resources to the training and development of employees at work.

Groom-from-within philosophy/Promote-from-within policy

Organisations that practices groom-from-within philosophy are populated by committed people. In such organisations talent development through training and retraining of staff is accorded the greatest priority. If there is a job vacancy, first of all candidates will be sought locally, but if

no one is available; candidates will be sought across a region or across the world.

Groom-from-within philosophy succeed  best in an atmosphere where managers act as coaches or mentors and also encourage people to move around within the organisation for career development purposes rather than holding on to the best talents.

Conclusion

Employees are the backbone of any organisation. Their commitment to work and organisation

Will produce positive results in terms of high productivity, desirable behaviour, increased loyalty, high morale, job satisfaction, low turnover and absenteeism.

References

Chen ZX, Tsui AS, Farh JL (2002). Loyalty to supervisor vs. organizational commitment: Relationships to employee performance in China. J. Occup. Organ. Psychol., 75: 339-356.

Guest, D E (1987). Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations, Journal of Management Studies, 14(5), pp 503-21.

Jennifer Shu-Jen Lin, She-Cheng Lin, Ben-Yuan Lin (2010). The moderating effects of employee personality characteristics on organizational commitment during periods of organizational change. African Journal of Business Management Vol. 4(17), pp. 3681-3690.

Martin, P and Nicholas, J (1987). Creating a committed workforce. London: IPM Publications.

Salancik, G R (1977). Commitment and control of organisational behaviour and belief, in New Directions in Organizational Behaviour, ed B M  Staw and G R Salancik, St Clair Press, Chicago.

About the writer

Ajiboro Ayodeji is a Chartered HR Practitioner based in Lagos, Nigeria. Tel: 2348027807452. Email: hutrenconsulting@gmail.com.

©Hutren Consulting 2011