Critical Analysis of Individual Attributes and Their Effects on Job Performance - Example

ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Organisational Behaviour Introduction Modern organisational setting is changing more rapidly thanks to technology, which is continually growing depending on how business is carried out. Therefore, businesses have to be in a position to function in an international setting. Professionals in organisations must be capable to interact freely with persons from scores of cultures, backgrounds as well as different parts of the world. Majority of businesses understand the necessity for their workers to develop as well as uphold suitable work-associated skills and attitudes. According to Mote (2011), the yearly evaluations of employee’s performance carried out by several companies offer understanding into the individual attributes that these organisations believe are critical for organisational success. Basically, through performance evaluation, employees are rated based on numerous job-related tasks. Managers have a tendency to assess their workers based on their individual attributes, effort, or ability. Abstein et al. (2014, p.93) assert that the attributions made by people for their individual behaviour as well impact their job performance within the organization. At the workplace, employees have numerous dissimilarities, like distinctive personalities, attitudes, emotions, and values. When new workers are employed, their individual attributes influence how they perform as well as behave. Furthermore, most organisations employ people having the anticipation that they possess particular attributes, abilities, skills, and values. For that reason, it is imperative to comprehend individual attributes that are of essence at place of work. The essay seeks to provide a critical analysis of individual attributes and their effects on job performance, and also provide a discussion how manager understands of individual attributes in the workplace can help to improve the organization’s performance. Discussion Individual attributes represent beliefs, attitudes, as well as skills; and from time to time, they are the direct outcome of social circumstances or benefactions and personal history. According to Robbins (2013, p.109), individual attributes are characteristics, qualities or properties of persons that reveal one's distinctive personal character. So individual attributes can be seen as naturally acquired or developed from one's accrued life practices. Even though individual attributes are the most idiosyncratic, an increasing, substantial body of research associates certain individual attributes to efficacious person and improved job performance. There are various types of individual attributes that can be encountered at the workplace they include; (1) achievement attitudes, which depends on the level of motivation that makes a person determined, persistent, and compulsive, or unconcerned, moderate, or lazy. (2) Emotional personality, which can be described as emotions ruling employee lives such as confidence, calmness, patience, anger, dissatisfaction, and insecurity (Zamora, 2013). (3) Energy level, which involves the pace of employees day after day life that makes them fast or slow, energetic or lethargic, and active or passive. (4) Intellectual factors are attributes of employees’ minds that make them alert or inattentive, intelligent or dull-witted. (5) Material attitudes, which concerns how workers regard their workplace since they can be economical, frugal, and money-oriented or wasteful and extravagant (Zamora, 2002). Other individual attributes include philosophical attitudes (optimistic or pessimistic, flexible or inflexible), physical attributes (youthful or old, strong or weak), task performance (organized and accurate or full of errors and disordered) (Zamora, 2002). Individual attributes can positively and negatively impact job performance, and this can be evidenced by the five-factor model, which is associated with job satisfaction that workers’ experience. Generally, employees who are satisfied are expected to remain in track and to perform exceedingly well than unhappy employees. Previous research such Barrick et al. (2002, p.46), pointed out that neuroticism was negatively associated with job performance, while agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness were positively associated with performance. As it will be evidenced later in the essay, the impact of openness to experience on job performance cannot be ignored. For extraverted individuals, low level of motivation in the workplace can lead to poor performance. If the place of work is a social setting, Barrick et al. (2002, p.47) posit that extraverted workers are more probable to be in short supply of motivation at work, and this can be attributed to less motivation at their home. On the other hand, introverts are more expected to be at their best level of motivation outside the place of work, where motivation is less, and for that reason they are more likely to be unhappy with the motivation level that they get at the workplace (Eysenck, 2014, p.292). As evidenced in Bandura et al. (2014, p.614) study, useful employee behaviour that is freely-given, voluntary and not attached to any performance contingency, like incentive, bonus, or pay has been of much interest to researchers in the fields of worker motivation and job performance. Bandura et al. (2014, p.614) study has proven that human resource management practices are vital for their role in improving workers’ sense of job motivation, which includes the chance to carry out voluntary helpful behaviour. Bandura et al. (2014, p.614) further indicate that helpful, voluntary behaviour can have a positive, direct association to individual as well as job performance. Various ideas have been acknowledged to make up this behaviour, most particularly contextual performance, organizational citizenship behaviour, pro-social behaviour as well as extra-role behaviour. According to Patel and Thatcher (2014, p.1937) individuals with conscientious attributes are careful, follow procedures and rules, and possess a tough proclivity toward retaining high performance standards. Achievement orientation for that reason is an essential element of conscientiousness, and so individuals inclined towards achievement orientation seeks and search for other solutions so as to improve their performance. Steered by a resilient sense of dependability, productiveness, responsibility, and conscientious individuals can experience high performance levels. Considering that employees are expected to work harder, Patel and Thatcher (2014, p.1937) posit that dependability is an astute attribute that can improve persistence in the workplace. Achieving motivation element of conscientiousness can help employees to search for, develop, put into practice, and exploit solutions so as to triumph over the setbacks of smallness. Individuals with conscientious attributes are persevering, achievement-oriented, and hardworking, and as a result they always perform exceedingly well (Patel & Thatcher, 2014, p.1937). Considering that conscientiousness supports control-related behaviours and goal-directed traits that heighten perseverance. Besides that, Blickle et al. (2013, p.1146) assert that individuals, whose levels of openness to experience are high, mostly are intellectually inquisitive, search for new involvements, and look for novel ideas. These individuals’ are high job performers because they are, innovative, creative, gifted, thoughtful, unconventional, and different in their way of thinking. Such individuals do not just embark on a range of enlightening experiences and searching diverse functional areas, but can as well innovatively influence human capital when looking for knowledge and information while seeking new opportunities (Patel & Thatcher, 2014, p.1937). As mentioned by Patel and Thatcher (2014, p.1937), individual attributes such as openness to experience can allow for valuations of environmental necessities and improves the resourcefulness, which is vital in solving routine problems as well as create active responses to complications emerging in the workplace. Additionally, individuals who are candid are tolerant and inquisitive and can rise to nerve-wracking situations. Besides that, extraverts portray high levels of friendliness, and energy, always seek enthusiasm, and are positive emotionally. Extraversion attributes associates with two different features of behaviour: sociability and dominance. The above mentioned features are essential in environments that need more social interaction like in workplace. Extraverts as stated by Patel and Thatcher (2014, p.1938) are habitually fascinated in being resourceful and gather social support by means of persuading. For instance, managers who encourage objectivity among workers activities see extraverted individuals as committed. Extraverts for that reason have positive impact on performance because they are likely to have high levels of emotional impact (Barrick et al., 2002). Emotional personality, especially confidence enables workers to face their day to day workplace setbacks with sureness of success, and this as a result leads to improved job performance. Still, individual attributes can negatively impact job performance, especially when workplace deviance takes place. Normally, work deviance occurs when workers willingly follows a course of action that intimidates the welfare of the organization or the workers. For instance, some behaviors like stealing, hostile attitudes towards workmates, and putting less effort can lessen the organizational job performance. Attributes such as withholding effort and stealing are classified as deviance in the organization, while rude and hostile behaviour toward workmates is classified as interpersonal deviance Berry et al. (2007, p.410). Undoubtedly, deviance at place of work is associated with the five-factor model of personality and negatively impacts job performance. For instance, organizational and interpersonal deviances are negatively connected with high levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness and positively associated with high neuroticism levels. Therefore, this connotes that, individuals who are less conscientious and emotionally unstable and are more likely to steal or withhold effort, while individuals who are unfriendly are more likely to be aggressive to their workmates. A different totally different aspect to reflect on is workplace perception considering that workers with negative perception of their factory floor are more likely to follow a different behaviour, which as a result negatively impact job performance. Research such as Berry et al. (2007), points out that individual attributes acts as a factor for moderation: workplace aberration is likely to be validated with regard to individual when workplace perception is negative and agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability is low. Even though sociability is positively associated with teamwork, it is negatively associated with being a manager. Therefore, if the managers fail to give their employees a platform to voice their ideas, then they will deviate in another route. This will ultimately impact job performance negatively, considering that employees will feel neglected and so they will withhold their effort. Evidently as discussed above, individual attributes are meaningful to managers, for the reason that the personalities of workers can show how well they carry out their jobs. Individual attributes can help managers see how hard an employees can work, how prepared they are, how they interact in the workplace, and their creativity. Importantly, comprehending the main individual attributes of the employees helps managers understand how better to communicate with them; thus, resulting in improved job performance. (Altman et al., 2013, p.525) These attributes help managers identify high performing employees to easily reward them and also improve their career opportunities through on-job training. According to Patel and Thatcher (2014, p.1938), high openness is vital in jobs that need flexibility and creativity; because it enables managers to drive the organization to the organizational goals. Individual attributes enable managers to identify creative workers who deserve to be rewarded and who may act as role models for employees who are low in openness, so as to make them innovative. In a nutshell, through individual attributes, managers can understand why conscientiousness and high emotional stability are needed in the majority of jobs, and why the level of extraversion, agreeableness, as well as openness to experience are reliant on the job requirements and duties (Patel & Thatcher, 2014, p.1938). Therefore, whereas individual attributes can associate with how an individual carries out a job, managers should not base it as the the only characteristic whereupon a hiring decision must be made. Rather, they should know that improved performance can be attained if the individual’s intelligence, experience, and education are considered. Intellectual ability can enable a worker to finish a particular assignment, but managers should as well understand that workers capacity to work with others as well as to remain motivated are attributes of an individual. Conclusion In conclusion, it has been argued that job performance and individual attributes as evaluated in the five-factor model are associated. Basically, the relation between individual attributes and job performance is an outcome of the workplace social aspects as compared to the ability. Individual attributes are strongly associated with work together with others and appreciating the general experience in the workplace, which are the main elements of lasting job success. Withholding effort or working collaboratively are part of individual attributes that directly impact whether an employee will be successful in the place of work, and they are staunchly associated with the Big Five. Extraversion and conscientiousness and two key attributes of the five-factor model associated with individual attributes that relate to positive job performance. Sociability and task performance, especially error-prone individuals are on the other hand associated negatively with job performance. Therefore, it is imperative for managers to understand individual attributes of their employees so as to understand which attributes are suitable for increasing job performance, considering that a well performing organization ends up being successful. 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