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    Work Attitudes

    How we behave at work often depends on how we feel about being there. Therefore, making sense of how people behave depends on understanding their work attitudes.

    An attitude refers to our opinions, beliefs, and feelings about aspects of our environment. We have attitudes toward the food we eat, people we meet, courses we take, and things we do.
    At work, two job attitudes have the greatest potential to influence how we behave. These are job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

    Job Attitudes
    Job satisfaction organizational commitment
    Refers to the feelings people have toward their job. If the number of studies conducted on job satisfaction is an indicator, job satisfaction is probably the most important job attitude.

    Institutions such as Gallup or the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) periodically conduct studies of job satisfaction to track how satisfied employees are at work.

    According to a recent Gallup survey, 90% of the employees surveyed said that they were at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs

    Refers to the feelings people have toward their job. If the number of studies conducted on job satisfaction is an indicator, job satisfaction is probably the most important job attitude.

    Institutions such as Gallup or the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) periodically conduct studies of job satisfaction to track how satisfied employees are at work.

    According to a recent Gallup survey, 90% of the employees surveyed said that they were at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs Important to know
    There is a high degree of overlap between job satisfaction and organizational commitment because things that make us happy with our job often make us more committed to the company as well. Companies believe that these attitudes are worth tracking because they often are associated with outcomes that are important to the Controlling role, such as performance, helping others, absenteeism, and turnover.

    What Causes Positive Work Attitudes?
    What makes you satisfied with your job and develop a commitment to your company?

    Research shows that people pay attention to several factors of their work environment, including characteristics of the job (a function of Organizing activities), how they are treated (related to Leadership actions), the relationships they form with colleagues and managers (also Leadership related), and the level of stress the job entails.

    As we have seen earlier in this chapter, personality and values play important roles in how employees feel about their jobs.
    Job Characteristics
    Employees tend to be more satisfied and committed in jobs that involve certain characteristics.

    The ability to use a variety of skills, having autonomy at work, receiving feedback on the job, and performing a significant task is some job characteristics that are related to satisfaction and commitment.

    However, the presence of these factors is not important for everyone. Some people have a high need for growth. These employees tend to be more satisfied when their jobs help them build new skills and improve

    Loher, B. T., Noe, R. A., Moeller, N. L., & Fitzgerald, M. P. (1985). A meta-analysis of the relation of job characteristics to job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 280–289; Mathieu, J. E., & Zajac, D. M. (1990). A review and meta-analysis of the antecedents correlate, and consequences of organizational commitment. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 171–194.

    Organizational Justice and the Psychological Contract
    A strong influence over our satisfaction level is how fairly we are treated. People pay attention to the fairness of company policies and procedures, fair and kind treatment from supervisors, and fairness of their pay and other rewards they receive from the company. Cohen-Charash, Y., & Spector, P. E. (2001). The role of justice in organizations: A meta-analysis.
    The psychological contract is the unspoken, informal understanding that an employee will contribute certain things to the organization (e.g., workability and a willing attitude) and will receive certain things in return (e.g., reasonable pay and benefits).

    Under the psychological contract, an employee may believe that if he or she works hard and receives favorable performance evaluations, he or she will receive an annual bonus, periodic raises, and promotions, and will not be laid off. Since the “downsizing” trend of the past 20 years, many commentators have declared that the psychological contract is violated more often than not.

    Relationships at Work

    Two strong predictors of our happiness at work and commitment to the company are our relationships with coworkers and managers.

    The people we interact with, how friendly they are, whether we are socially accepted in our workgroup, whether we are treated with respect by them are important to our happiness at work.

    Research also shows that our relationship with our manager,
    -how considerate the manager is, and whether we build a trust-based relationship with our manager are critically important to our job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

    Effective relationships
    When our manager and overall management listen to us, care about us, and value our opinions, we tend to feel good at work. When establishing effective relations with employees, little signals that you care about your employees go a long way.

    For example, in 2004 San Francisco’s Hotel Carlton was taken over and renovated by a new management group, Joie de Vivre Hospitality. One of the small things the new management did that created dramatic results was that, in response to an employee attitude survey, they replaced the old vacuum cleaners housekeepers were using and started replacing them every year.

    It did not cost the company much to replace old machinery, but this simple act of listening to employee problems and taking action went a long way to make employees feel better.

    Not surprisingly, the amount of stress present in a job is related to employee satisfaction and commitment. Stressors range from environmental ones (noise, heat, inadequate ventilation) to interpersonal ones (organizational politics, conflicts with coworkers) to organizational ones (pressure to avoid making mistakes, worrying about the security of the job).

    Some jobs, such as intensive care unit nurse and military fighter pilot, are inherently very stressful.
    Another source of stress has to do with the roles people are expected to fulfill on and off the job. Role ambiguity is uncertainty about what our responsibilities are in the job.

    Role conflict involves contradictory demands at work; it can also involve conflict between fulfilling one’s role as an employee and other roles in life, such as the role of parent, friend, or community volunteer.

    Generally speaking
    The higher the stress level, the lower job satisfaction tends to be. But not all stress is bad, and some stressors actually make us happier! For example, working under time pressure and having a high degree of responsibility are stressful, but they are also perceived as challenges and tend to be related to high levels of satisfaction.

    Assessing Work Attitudes in the Workplace
    *Given that work, attitudes may give us clues about who will leave or stay, who will perform better, and who will be more engaged, tracking satisfaction and commitment levels is a helpful step for companies.
    If there are companywide issues that make employees unhappy and disengaged, these need to be resolved. There are at least two systematic ways in which companies can track work attitudes: through attitude surveys and exit interviews.
    Companies such as KFC and Long John Silver restaurants, the SAS Institute, Google, and others give periodic attitude surveys, which are used to track employee work attitudes. Companies can get more out of these surveys if responses are held confidential. If employees become concerned that their individual responses will be shared with their immediate manager, they are less likely to respond honestly.