Industrial & Organizational Psychology
CRITERION THEORY AND DEVELOPMENT 1
8
EMPLOYEES’ BEHAVIOR AND ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY
Criterion Theory and Development Grand Canyon University Principles of Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Employees’ Behavior and Organization Productivity
Introduction
Industrial and organizational psychology also referred to as the I/O psychology is a line of study that is basically geared towards learning the employees’ behavior at work place and how this behavior or characteristics affect the organization and general industrial performance. Organizations in the in the business world today are experiencing so many challenges that affect their performance and existence in the industry. When we take a keen look at these problems we find that a very large percentage of the management dilemma and organization problems have a signature of employees’ behavior at one point. So basically, the solution to most of these problems in the businesses is actually found with the business workforce. This is the reason why we have decided to establish the relationship that exists between the employees’ behavior and the general business productivity.
Employees behavior
The manner in which an individual carries him or herself at work place is very key on the individual career development and even organizational development on the other end of the spectrum. Generally, the characteristics of employees are determined by several factors. The first one is the organization’s policies or rather the rules and regulations set by the organization that the employees are required to act within when at their place of work or anywhere else in the business premises. In most cases the employees will tend to follow these policies because at the time they were being recruited by the business they must have come across the regulations so psychologically it will be following them, and it will be always in their mind to contain their moves so that they do not find themselves on the wrong side with the employer. Therefore, these individual policies directly affect the workforce behavior and can thereby be used to adjust the organizations performance.
The next factor that actually determines the employee’s behavior at work place is the personal character or principle. There are some group of individuals who are having a problem controlling themselves maybe they have some vice like a negative attitude towards work, this person can actually influence his workmate and within no time the organization will begin to move to some negative direction. For this person it is personal, and it can actually be changed but it is not taken care of and that brings tragedy to the whole team. On the other hand, there could be equally those individuals who are focused and are actually determined towards achieving the business goals. Incorporation of these individuals in the business will be so beneficial. So basically it is important for the business to do some proper analysis of their workforce before posting them to given departments or giving them duties and know whether according to their personality they are fit for the task.
Work environment is another very important when analyzing the employee behavior at work place. The type of the environment where employees operate is closely tied to the individual motivation and the general business performance at large (Heath,2006). When the workforce has the zeal to do the job, they are motivated both physically and psychologically the productivity of the firm will show some positive response and the profitability will rise in due time. So the work environment has some direct impact on the employee behavior and the business productivity at large.
Business productivity analysis
The term business productivity is simply the ability of the firm or organization to use the resources it has properly to satisfy the customers’ needs and attain the objective of the business that is making profits. Productivity can be used to analyze the business performance and the firm can as well use it to evaluate its progress since it commenced its operations, productivity can be also defined as the ratio of output of the organization to the projected production. The productivity of the company is actually related to the efficiency of the firm. Whenever the business is producing its goods and services at low cost of production it becomes more efficient and the profits of the businesses equally increase.
There are several factors that affect the business productivity and they tend to be common across the business world. These factors as we are going to look at them have a common denominator and that is human resource coordination and in this case is the employees including the management body. There is a common mistake that people normally make when looking at the employees issue, they forget that the management is also part of the employees. The management is also employee’s in fact very senior ones whose moves have to be well calculated to ensure the business is run as required or else it will collapse.
The first factor that affects business productivity is the employees’ motivation level. The employees are the people who are directly involved in the production process of any business organization. Motivation in production is literally the desire and willingness of an individual to perform a task that he/she is supposed to do. This willingness can either be increased or reduced depending on various reasons. The business can either do some performance evaluation in the organization and reward the best performing employees and also encouraging those whose performance are not quite good to at least adjust. This will create some healthy competition among the employees and by that the organizations productivity will increase. They can as well make the work environment quite friendly and attractive to the various individuals who work in those stations, when the area where one works is attractive the individual will be motivated even to worked harder (Bergman & Jean, 2016).
The other factor that plays a role in the business productivity is the business strategy. The manner in which the organization runs its operations, how it deals with the challenges in the market like competition and economic changes will affect the productivity of the company directly. Businesses operate in the world where the factors of production are generally scarce and firms are trying to gain some competitive advantage and kick their opponents in the industry. The strategy that the business uses to approach these problems in the market will actually tell how far the business will go and approach the productivity question if any in the organization. The strategy the organization also uses to handle the employees is also important to help optimize production in the business, the strategy should receive acceptance from the employees’ side or it fails.
Effects of Employees Behavior on Organization Productivity
The organizational productivity as we have seen is very crucial part of the organization any business. Whenever there is fall in the productivity of the business, it gives the workforce more so the management of the business a very hard time trying to explain to the business ownership and the general public who have interest in the business. Productivity is one element that got a lot of variables that can basically make it fall or go down below the profitability level. The main factor or rather the variable that we are going to look at here as affecting the productivity is the employees’ behavior.
Whenever the word employees’ is mentioned in an organization people normally assume that it is only referring to the junior or subordinate staff and not the management body. Basically the employees’ body normally consists of everybody in the business organization who is employed in the organization. When all other factors in production process are kept constant, the general employees’ behavior and attitude towards their job is the main cause of the fall in business productivity (Dhar, 2015).
The first effect that employees may be initiating that causes the productivity of the business to reduce is poor communication between the human resource body. Productivity is a very long process because it actually begins from the procurement of the raw materials to the manufacturing to parking and finally to delivery of the products to the final consumer or the customers of the business. Whenever there is some communication in any of these stages the production process will be affected, and the net output of the department and the organization as a whole will fall. So basically, the communication break-down is one area that if the employees treat in a casual manner the output of the company must feel the effect.
The next case that will also lead to this decline in the organizational productivity decline is the employees’ attitude towards their job and even their leaders in the organization. In a situation where by the individuals who is involved in the production process are not in good spirit their work performance will fall. This lack of good spirit and synergy to do the work are sometimes psychological, one may be having some family or just social issues that is eating them and definitely affect their performance, and because of the connected nature of the production process when one segment fails to give its optimum the general output in many cases will be shaken.
In some cases, we find that the employees are not coordinating well when carrying out their duties. There are some individuals who are just disorganized naturally so when this kind of behavior gets its way into the organization the employees will not be carrying out their duties properly and this will significantly affect the business output. Productivity as we said is the ratio of the actual output to the expected output, therefore, when there is luck of coordination in the organization this ratio will drop significantly indicating decline in the business productivity (Aguinis, Ramani, Campbell, Bernal-Turnes, Drewry & Edgerton, 2017).
Ways of solving the decline in productivity problem
The main aim of any business is always to maximize the income in terms of profit and reduce its overheads. This will in a very large way have to do with the business productivity. Productivity should not be confused to be solely dealing with the quantity of the output; it actually has so much to do with the products quality. As we have seen productivity is so demanding from the workforce, so the management way forward is to attack the problem from its direct source and that is to sort the employee’s related causes of the productivity decline.
The first move is to do some serious follow up on individual employees so as to ensure they are in the right position to carry out their responsibilities. When a constant monitoring is done it will be easier to identify the individual problem that one may be going through and fix it before it goes too far to the level of affecting the overall business productivity.
The other approach is to critically examine the recruits and ensure they are competent before giving them various duties in the business. An employee is directly involved in the production of the company and so if he or she cannot deliver as expected then the business will be affected adversely. The human resource management body should ensure that before they offer any individual job to work with the organization they are critically examined, and their personality and behavior can suit the organization. There should also be some follow up on the employees who are recently employed so that in case they have some negative behavior that can affect the business it is sorted as early as possible before it affects the organization adversely (Bammens, Notelaers & Van Gils, 2015).
Conclusion
Industrial and organizational psychology is one diverse area that deals with the individual characteristics at work place. In the case of employees’ behavior and business productivity, the organization has full control of its employees, so it can simply manipulate the workforce in some constructive manner to maximizer their performance and in turn increase the business profitability. The simple way is just work together with the employees, making them feel that their efforts are so much appreciated by even rewarding them. This will change their behavior at the work place hence the performance of the business will respond in a positive manner. It is also important to identify and fix the problems as early as possible. So that the performance is not affected adversely.
References
Aguinis, H., Ramani, R. S., Campbell, P. K., Bernal-Turnes, P., Drewry, J. M., & Edgerton, B. T. (2017). Most frequently cited sources, articles, and authors in industrial-organizational psychology textbooks: Implications for the science–practice divide, scholarly impact, and the future of the field. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 10(4), 507-557. Retrieved from http://hermanaguinis.com/IOPtextbooks.pdf
Bammens, Y., Van Gils, A., & Voordeckers, W. (2011). Boards of directors in family businesses: A literature review and research agenda Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edswss&AN=000290541700002&site=eds-live&scope=site
Bammens, Y., Notelaers, G., & Van Gils, A. (2015). Implications of family business employment for employees’ innovative work involvement. Family Business Review, 28(2), 123-144. Retrieved from https://ffipractitioner.org/implications-of-family-business-employment-for-employees-innovative-work-involvement/
Bergman, M. E., & Jean, V. A. (2016). Where have all the “workers” gone? A critical analysis of the unrepresentativeness of our samples relative to the labor market in the industrial–organizational psychology literature. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 9(1), 84-113. Retrieved from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/industrial-and-organizational-psychology/article/where-have-all-the-workers-gone-a-critical-analysis-of-the-unrepresentativeness-of-our-samples-relative-to-the-labor-market-in-the-industrialorganizational-psychology-literature/91D53983E33967196FDE8077DF5C1BB9
Dhar, R. L. (2012). Employees' perception of organizational support: A qualitative investigation in the indian information technology (IT) industry Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edswss&AN=000309214100011&site=eds-live&scope=site
Dhar, R. L. (2015). Service quality and the training of employees: The mediating role of organizational commitment. Tourism Management, 46, 419-430. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/20df/1f003cc6009bb6fdc345dd311c7a9b337c42.pdf
Introduction to industrial organizational-psychology - riggio,re (1991). Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edswss&AN=A1991FC02700012&site=eds-live&scope=site
Riggio, R. (2015). Introduction to industrial and organizational psychology. Routledge.