Individual and Organizational Factors Affecting Job Performance - Essay Example

Occupational Psychology Question: Individual and Organizational Factors Affecting Job Performance Introduction In all organizations, workers are faced with various different factors that affect their occupational wellbeing and as a result impact on their job performance, either positively or negatively. Most of these factors are related to the workers psychology. Occupational psychology is the branch of psychology that attempts to understand and explain human behaviour at the workplace. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in psychological research to explain the relationship between occupations, occupational health and job satisfaction (Brought and O’Driscoll, 2010). This is largely attributed to the fact that with increasing competition in business, most organizations are trying to improve their general performance by getting the best out of their employees. For a long time, the main focus of occupational psychology was on measuring the individual differences between employees and the effect of these differences on job performance. The main area of focus was explanation of the various personal characteristics that related to job performance, such attributes included personal skills, ability, traits and personality. However, more recent developments at the workplace have shifted focus towards the realization that organizational factors also play a big part in employee performance. This study examines personal attributes in relation to employee performance and also examines organizational factors including globalization of business, technological developments and organizational structure. The paper starts by presenting a brief theoretical foundation of employee performance so as to create a perspective and link between various theories and the current practice in the field. The study then proceeds to present individual factors affecting job performance followed by organizational factors affecting job performance. Finally, the paper discusses occupational wellbeing in consideration of all the factors highlighted before presenting a conclusion. Theoretical Foundations of Employee Performance Employee performance research was pioneered not in psychology but by engineers looking to boost industrial performance through application of scientific methods at the workplace (Arnold et al., 2010). At first the focus was mainly on scientific management, this emphasized efficient ways of performing tasks by employees to improve production. Although the scientists focused on production efficiency, their concepts included a lot of psychological perspectives. One of the pioneers of scientific management concepts in industry was Frederick Winslow Taylor. Taylor suggested the careful analysis of jobs to determine optimal ways of performing related tasks, hiring of employees based on their ability to perform tasks, training of employees, and rewarding of employees in proportion to their productivity as a motivation to higher performance. Psychologists started playing a larger role in occupational science during the First World War starting in 1914, notably in the armies. According to Cascio and Aguinis (2008), psychological influence was applied in the military particularly in determining recruitment and training methods. After the war this influence spread into the private business world as psychologists, engineers and managers came up with various theories for employee engagement. Between 1927 and 1932, Elton Mayo conducted the famous Hawthorne studies in an electrical company in Chicago. The most important outcome of these studies in that their findings revealed the psychological effect of work environment for the first time. The studies indicated that any workplace is a social system whereby relations between workers and their colleagues or the work environment cannot be predicted or determined. Employee ability and fit to task was highlighted as being important but the psychological ability to cope with the social environment of the workplace was of greater importance (Michie and West, 2004). According to the findings of the Hawthorne studies, social pressure and group characteristics had a significant impact on employee performance. The approach by Elton Mayo realigned researchers’ focus from scientific management to emphasis on human relations. The main focus of the human relations approach is on psychological attributes of employees and their managers such as attitudes, morals, values, and morale (Michie and West, 2004). Although work is commonly viewed at a means of meeting personal economic needs, the human relations approach pints out that employees work in normal social environments affected by common social factors which in turn affect their performance. Aspects affecting employee performance such as management of stress, leadership, interpersonal relationships, teamwork, and other social skills play a great role in employee satisfaction. A more recent theory by Fredrickson (1998) focuses on emotions and their effect on employee performance. This is one of the contemporary theoretical propositions developing from the human relations school of occupational psychology. Fredrickson (1998) came up with a model called ‘broaden and build’ which postulated that employees’ positive emotions broadened their job related efficiencies and helped build their personal resources essential for work. According to Fredrickson (1998) some of the emotions that relate to positive workplace attitude and help improve employee performance include joy, interest, contentment, and love. Basically, the daily occurrences at the workplace that are associated with the above emotions are credited with bonding between workers, their supervisors and managers and therefore they can be associated with better workplace environment and performance. Organizational factors influencing job performance can be largely examined from the point of view of industrial psychology. Industrial psychology examines employee performance from the perspective of the company and largely focuses on organization-oriented perspectives. These may include factors such as productivity, efficiency, and resources of which employees are considered as organizational human resources (Patterson, 2001). Industrial psychology focuses on four main areas including job analysis and evaluation, selection of the right employees for the right job (job-fit), training of employees in desired skills related to their tasks, and performance appraisal (Patterson, 2001). Individual Factors Affecting Job Performance As highlighted in the various theories informing occupational psychology, personal factors play a significant role in job performance of employees. Some of the most important personal factors have been highlighted by Fredrickson (1998) in his theory and they include joy, interest, love, and contentment. In practice, it has been established that these emotional factors are important for workplace bonding, harmony and suitable environment for good performance. It is important for managers and supervisors to understand and pay attention to employee emotional needs because this increases the level of positive emotions important for good performance. Managers who recognize and respond to individual employee emotional needs cultivate a good environment for happiness, love, care, excitement, tranquillity, and excitement. An environment where these emotions thrive among workers motivates them to come to work every day and do their best for each other. One of the most important individual factors that affect employee performance is basic needs. At the workplace, these include basic materials for work, equipment, and clarity of job expectations (Kersley et al., 2004). Another factor is that employees have a psychological need to feel that they are important to the organization and that they are contributing to its bottom line. One of the most critical elements of this need is personal-environmental fit. An employee should be able to get the opportunity to do what they understand how to do best in their organization, this is one of the essential points highlighted by Elton Mayo in the Hawthorne studies (Michie and West, 2004). For example, an employee trained particularly in advertising would be more comfortable and feel more important to the organization if he or she plays the role of advertisement development in the marketing department rather than any other role, say direct marketing. Sense of belonging is another factor that plays an important role in employee satisfaction. The ability to have their opinions heard and considered during times of important decision making in the company is very important to their morale and sense of belonging. This way, employees can be able to connect better with their work and their managers or supervisors; they will be able to develop a sense of belonging because they realize that their input matters for the organization (Kersley et al., 2004). For example when a factory wants to introduce a new plant or process, it would be good for the employees who work in that section to be involved in assessment of its functioning, pros and cons, how it will affect their jobs and so on. Otherwise they feel left out and demoralized, this then leads to resistance to change and poor performance. Emotional intelligence is one of the personal psychological factors that affect employee performance. The concept of emotional intelligence was first developed by Salovey and Mayer (1990). Emotional intelligence is generally considered to be the ability to understand other people’s emotions as well as one’s own emotions and to use this understanding to guide one’s actions. Emotional intelligence was also defined by Goleman (1998) as the capacity of a person to recognize his or her own feelings as well as those of others, for self-motivation, and management of personal emotions and relationships. It has been established that people with high levels of emotional intelligence experience greater success in their careers. High emotional intelligence has been associated with greater job satisfaction, higher job performance, good leadership traits, ability to work in teams, good career development, and ability to manage occupational stress effectively (Goleman, 1998). Emotional intelligence is a very personal factor that affects employees individually and depends on other personal traits. In general, a worker with high emotional intelligence is able to perform well at work than that with lower emotional intelligence. For example at any job setting, a worker with better emotional intelligence will have greater ability to interact with colleagues irrespective of their character because he or she is able to analyze the next person and mentally strategize the best way to deal with them. Employees with lower emotional intelligence often end up in quarrels with others and with authority; they may bear feeling of injustice or lack of recognition needlessly and so on. This affects their ability to perform well in their tasks. For example in a factory section, an employee with high emotional intelligence will be able to deal with a harsh supervisor better than one with low emotional intelligence. This is because the former can analyze the supervisor and see reasons behind the harshness and therefore it is unlikely to significantly affect his job performance, however that one with lower emotional intelligence might have feeling of being picked on and anger or frustration against the supervisor. As a result the latter employee may be emotionally and psychologically affected to the point that it will significantly affect his or her performance. Organizational Factors Affecting Job Performance Just as personal factors have great bearing on employee performance, organizational factors have been established to play a big role in job performance of workers. This is largely attributed to the fact that organizations form the environment in which workers operate and working environment is critical to performance. One of the most important organizational factors that affect the contemporary working environment is technology. There have been rapid changes in technology over the last few centuries; however the last century experienced the most rapid growth in technology and its application at the workplace. Organizations have experienced great transformations as technology has developed, particularly with regard to computer technology and internet (Cascio and Aguinis, 2008). As a result of technology, there have also been significant changes to job content and processes, very few jobs are yet to be affected by computer technology in the contemporary workplace. For example a company will have computer in one form or another in at least all the departments; this will have either increased job complexity or made execution of particular tasks much easier. Technology also leads to redundancy of skills previously considered vital and in many cases computer-based machines have replaced humans from jobs with the few operating them being reduced to monitoring equipment rather than being the technical experts they are trained to be (Gajendran and Harrison, 2007). The effect of technology on employee performance is twofold; it either improves employee performance or reduces it depending on the circumstances. In cases where technology makes work easier and more enjoyable for employees, the workers get more motivated because they can apply their skills well and enjoy their jobs (Brought and O’Driscoll, 2010). This improves performance. For example an engineer working in a production plant will be more motivated when they use a computer for problem diagnosis and solution development so that they can apply their skills better in solving the problem. However, an employee who was forced into a new department because the job he or she was doing can now be done by one person using a computer rather than five people may not be comfortable in the new job thus performing at a lower level. Another organizational factor that affects employee performance is changes in work patterns. According to Patterson (2001) there have been many changes in patterns of working that can be attributed to technology and the need to improve productivity. These include the necessity for constant communication, job sharing, flexible working schedules and many others. For example, the increased monitoring of work progress through communication devices and other gadgets makes it more difficult for employees to disengage from work. A factory worker who is monitored constantly through video camera links or whose progress is constantly monitored through computer works under considerable pressure compared to how it was years ago. As a result the worker’s performance may become poor or it may improve. On the other hand it is more likely that the performance will remain constant in terms of quantity while quality may deteriorate because of pressure. Changes in working schedules with the advent of 24 hour economies in many parts of the world has also affected employee performance in several ways (Patterson, 2002). It is now possible that an employee can choose the best working hours in many companies and as a result the psychological comfort derived from working those hours enables the employee to perform. On the other hand, some employees are forced to work unfavourable hours, this demoralizes them and their performance is therefore negatively affected. Such observations correspond to the findings by Elton Mayo and Frederick Taylor. Similarly, there is emphasis and reward for overtime in many companies so as to boost production. Because of the need of most low level workers for more cash to satisfy basic needs, as explained by Abraham Maslow in the hierarchy of needs, the workers end up working many hours a day thus negatively affecting their performance (Patterson, 2002). Another important organizational factor that affects employee performance is alteration of labour force and globalization. Because of many changes in society, the typical contemporary workforce looks quite different from how it used to be just a few decades from now. Migrations have increased the racial mix of companies, human rights consideration have increased the numbers of women in the workforce and many other changes (Wyatt et al., 2010). Such changes have resulted from globalization and fight for human rights and recognition of all people. The current nature of organizations affects performance in various different ways, for example the presence of increased amounts of women at the workplace has changed the workplace environment considerably for the better. This may help improve the performance of workers. On the other hand a worker from an ethnic minority working in an organization where he or she feels discriminated or looked down upon may have problems coping with the environment and therefore his or her performance will reduce. Changes in organizational structure also play an important role in the performance of employees. In recent years there have been significant changes in the organizational structure of many organizations (Anderson et al., 2004). In the 1980s the focus was mainly on downsizing of organizations and making their structures much simpler. This is because most organizations had become very complex due to mergers and takeovers. Many contemporary organizations fall under the category of small and medium sized organizations (SMEs), these are relatively small in size and have much simpler structures than the larger companies if the 1980s and early 1990s (Wyatt et al., 2010). The downsizing of organizations over the years has resulted from a number of factors including economic conditions, need for efficiency and competition for resources. The old employment relationships have broken down due to such changes and the concept of working to retirement age is getting increasingly redundant. Workers in contemporary organizations often have to work on short renewable contracts, sign performance contracts or earn performance bonuses. This affects employee performance either negatively or positively depending on whether the terms favour the worker or not. Occupational Wellbeing Occupational wellbeing generally affects employee performance to a significant extent. Occupational wellbeing relates to a situation whereby a worker is free of occupational stress, the latter refers to situation whereby the employee feels under pressure or stress from the work tasks or working environment Morrison and Payne (2003). According to Hart and Cooper (2001), occupational wellbeing includes emotional health as well as cognitive wellness of an employee. Emotional wellbeing of an employee can either be described as being negative or positive. While negative emotion will be described as distress, positive emotion is referred to as morale. Morale is generally recognized to positively affect an employee’s performance while distress negatively affects job performance. An employee in distress because of one or another reason is generally assumed to lack occupational wellbeing. On the other hand the cognitive component of occupational wellbeing is described as job satisfaction. This is a cognitive attribute because the employee can be in a position to make judgment of whether they are satisfied with job conditions or not and to which level (Hart, 1999). The occupational wellbeing approach indicates that an employee can be able to carry out an evaluation of their job satisfaction level by considering the positive and negative experiences associated with the employment. Conclusion Employee performance in an organization depends on a huge variety of factors some of which are categorized as being personal while others are organizational. While individual attributes are instrumental in shaping up employee attitude and ability to execute tasks, organizational factors are important in shaping up working environment. In general it can be concluded that as positive personal as well as organizational attributes tend to support good employee performance while negative factors affect performance negatively. The observations made in various studies and examples explored in this paper show that theories explaining occupational psychology support this. References Anderson, N., Lievens, F., van Dam, K. and Ryan, A.M. (2004). Future perspectives on employee selection: key directions for future research and practice. Applied Psychology, 53 (4), 487–501. Arnold et al. (2010).Work Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace (5th Ed.). Essex: Pearson Education. Brough, P. and O’Driscoll, M.P. (2010). Organisational interventions for balancing work and home demands: an overview. Work & Stress, 24 (3), 280–97. 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