KEEPING IT AFFECTIVE

"How did we get here?", Is a question often asked by many couples when the relationship gets rocky.

 Well, you could evaluate your feeling and commitment towards your job and find yourself asking yourself the same question! Many people find it hard to move back to the affective commitment in their relationships when they slide over to the continual. Juliet Engole an infoprenuer believes the best way to maintain an affective commitment is to identify what sparks and brings about the affection and always work towards maintaining that. Similarly, any individual that has affective commitment towards their job needs to work towards maintaining that one aspect that brings about the affective commitment.

Jane once worked for a tours and travel company that she had serious affective commitment for and this was because of her undying love for travel. Her commitment towards the company immediately shifted to continual the moment she was moved to the sales department. This supports Engole’s claim of how much we need to maintain the one aspect that brings about affective commitment. Similarly, in a relationship, if you are greatly attracted to your partner because of her physical attraction, both the parties have to work towards keeping the physical attraction in order to keep the relationship burning with affective commitment.

Managers all over the globe continue to ask themselves how best they can maintain the commitment. Today I capitalize on the following.

Involvement in Goal setting; Employees participation in the setting of goals and targets in the organization greatly increases how good they feel about the job. Imagine your husband greatly informs and consults you about all the decisions he intends to make for the good of the family while giving great consideration to your opinion.

This strengthens the bond with your husband and therefore greatly increasing the affective commitment. Similarly employees’ personal contribution in the goal setting of an organization through effective communication would greatly increase their organizational commitment

Employee Engagement; There seems to be a thin line between employee engagement and involvement in goal setting. However an employee is highly engaged if they go past their job description to do activities and tasks that are not necessarily locked to their job description. High employee engagement greatly increases one’s affective commitment and therefore managers need to work so hard to get the employees willingly engaged. The question is how?

 Research has it that employees will only greatly engage if they are at positive terms with each other and have a sense of belonging. This brings in the aspect of team building!.

Many workers today work in settings where they feel no sense of belonging and this is attributed to the kind of relationship they have with fellow workers. It is therefore the obligation of all employers to involve their workers in team building activities like after work parties, sports, personal life follow up, employee assistance programs, personal development and many others.


 So today I propose the question;- how are you relating with your employees?

ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT

“Heaven on Earth” is what it feels like; you literally think about her during day and in your sleep, waking up to a call or text message from her gives you reason to live calmly through this ruthless world. This is all because of the undying affection you have towards her.

Similarly, most workers love their jobs undyingly because of the affection that they feel towards them. Meyer & Allen (1994) refer to affective commitment as the perception of workers emotional attachment towards their jobs. Just like in most romantic relationships, affective commitment at work is highest during the first months of work. Various couples have confessed that they were more probable of taking a bullet for each other in their first months together which ironically is less probable now. Workers will do anything to be identified with their job with some scaling to extents of sleep talking about it.

Unfortunately for most, the affective is normally short lived with them rushing over to the “continuance commitment”. This characterizes the worker being bound to a job only by boundary factors such as pension plans and even salary. It has a negative implication on job performance since the individual is not in any way attached emotionally to their work. “Continuance” also referred to as “calculative” is a workers perception of the costs associated with staying or leaving the organization. Similarly many people stay in relationships today because they have children with their partners and view the probable loss of custody as a serious cost associated with moving away from the marriage. We see these kinds of people persevering in marriages all the time even without affection towards their partners often leading to infidelity which can closely be related to moonlighting as well as failure to perform marital responsibilities which can closely be related to poor performance at work.

Furthermore, commitment can be “Normative”. This can be defined as that perception workers have towards the obligations they have to their employers .In a recent survey several workers confessed that they are very loyal to their employers because they funded and contributed towards attainment of the former’s higher levels of education like master’s degrees or even doctorates. In many relationships today, partners stick through each other’s drama because they are obligated to them for a number of favors that they have enjoyed. Hellen recently confessed that she cannot move out of her marriage despite her husband’s violence because he has educated all her relatives and she feels indebted to him.

What disturbs many managers today is whether these levels and types of commitment happen completely chronologically. Well they don’t! Different types of commitment are inspired and brought about by different circumstances and can easily be controlled and maintained by managers and workers themselves. Similarly in romantic relationships, one can control and have power over the way their partners feel towards them.

At what level of commitment are you?

CONFLICT OF CONTRACTS

Would you rather be treated as an adult or a child? Feel total dominance over your subordinates, or operate on a same level basis? Well the latter is for employers to answer and the former for the employees.

Stanley ,has worked with the same company for over eight years ;and feels he does not want to work elsewhere since he has given his all into the same company which has in turn met all his needs and constantly rewards him for his loyalty. He is caught within the old psychological contract, where his employer is alluded as a parent caring for all the needs of the child ”Stanley” and in turn he has no option but to bare allegiance to his employer.

The old contract is characterized with a lot of control and compliance on the side of the employer and employee respectively. Amazingly, Stanley is not even highly qualified but is viewed as a very valuable asset to the company.

On the contrary, Sheila has failed to work and settle with only one job because of many reasons one being that she feels she is too qualified to limit herself to only one employer. For that reason she interacts with her several employers on an adult to adult basis and only enjoys benefits for her vast knowledge and intelligence.

 However much Sheila loves her jobs, she has not enjoyed even an ounce for her love and meager loyalty. Ironically all her employers view her as a serious liability that has to be cut.

Stanley & Sheila represent millions of employees that operate under the old and new psychological contracts respectively. Today’s labor market is dominated by multi skilled and multi employed individuals hungry for intellectual growth and this accounts for an increase in the application of the new psychological contract.

 Whereas it has its shortcomings such as high labor turnover and high job insecurity, proponents of the new have arguably proven a higher chance of survival in the labor market in comparison to the submissive traditional workforce that are stuck with in the old contract.

The bigger question therefore is; Can we merge the two contracts to form an unstoppable one that would be the future of employee management?...

MEET THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT

Attainment of employment often brings about a lot of excitement both on the side of the employer and employee. For a university graduate that has been on the search for jobs for a long period of time, the news is received with utmost joy and jubilation.

Pens glide along paper as contracts are signed and exchanged by both parties. This normally leaves the newly employed amazed, I mean who wouldn’t be! Imagine what you have been praying for and working so hard towards is finally handed over to you.

What is many times forgotten is that these employees are not to be managed by papers but rather human beings and that the contracts that they sign are contracts of employment and not management.  These contracts therefore do not account for the relationship between the employees and employers mentioned, the relationship in many cases is to result from a principle known as the “Psychological contract”. It is the set of unwritten expectations between the employer and the employee.

The contract operates in the sense that the employer expects the employee to treat them in a particular way aside from their usual performance. The employer may expect the employee to be fully committed to the values of the organization, enhance the image of the organization and also be loyal and compliant to them and in turn the employee expects to be treated in a particular way like being treated fairly, given work that matches their abilities, be rewarded equitably in accordance to their performance and many others.

The inherently subjective, promissory and perceptual concept is the foundation for all the relationships between the managers and subordinates. It influences the performance of employees since it greatly determines how good they fit into the organization and blend in to work towards meeting the targets of the organization.

It is however important for all current and prospective employees as well as employers to note that this concept evolves over time and we need to decide which contract we need to work within.

Understanding the psychological contract will enhance our work giving us a broader understanding of what happens in our different work places.