Essay: Essay on employee relationships

ABSTRACT
Employee relationships are always crucial to a firm. These relations decide the firm’s effectiveness. In order to achieve good relations with the employees numbers of behavioral studies are done by the researchers. In this research, we are trying to find the factors which help the firms to develop good relationships with their employees. For this purpose, we are measuring the attitudinal loyalty of the employees working in the different telecommunication companies by considering following three types of commitment.
i. Affective Commitment
ii. Continuous Commitment and
iii. Normative Commitment.
The findings of this research would be very fruitful for the firms in building employee loyalty.
INTRODUCTION
The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of employee relationship in building the employee loyalty in telecommunication industry. Employee commitment with the organization is of primarily concern over the years. The employees are relatively stable in their attitude and their responsiveness to engage in relationship with the employer becomes a loyal employee. Employee loyalty is major determinant especially for the service oriented organization. (Jos??e Bloemer (2006)) , Reichheld (2001) is one of the believers that the strong relationship with employee is helps to strengthen your business. Organization put the interest of customer first but employee is the major player which plays the vital role on behalf of the organization to build the loyal customer. Organization builds loyal employees in order to build loyal customer. (Herington, Johnson et al. 2009)
Over the years, most of the organizational behavior researchers are of the view that the employee relationship is of primarily importance and loyal employees make loyal customer. Allen and Meyer (1990) are of the view that employee loyalty is related to the psychological state of the employee. Their attitudinal loyalty behavior determines their level of commitment with the firm. According to social exchange theory loyal employee in service organization are more committed to deliver the high quality service to their customers. (Yee, Yeung et al. 2010) Internal relationship of the firm, have considerable influence on the external relationship. Internal relationship is mostly absent from the eye of researcher. In real this relationship has great impact to market their firm and earning customer loyalty. (Herington, Johnson et al. 2009)
The employee-employer relationship has centre of attraction in the corporate world over the years. Different theories came over to describe the importance of this relationship for the organization. One of these theories is EOR (employee organization relationship). This EOR include the micro and macro concepts. In Micro the concepts like the psychological contract and perceived organizational support and macro concept like employee relationship. Trust is an exchange element for both the involved parties because a risk factor of exchanging of benefits is involved. The theoretical framework of EOR is the parties involved in relationship, the reciprocal of benefits, and the exchange of resources. The literature EOR theory is associated with the psychology and Fields of management. The mainly focus of EOR is the basically to assist manager and helps them to improve ways of employee attitudes and behaviors like commitment and citizenship. The most important resource for any organization is the human resource and EOR helps organizational and mangers to improve ways to handle these resources. According to Franklin D. Roosev ‘Today we are faced with the pre-eminent fact that, if civilization is to stay alive, the science of maintaining human relationship should be promoted which is basically the ability of all kinds of peoples to live and exist together in peace in the same world (Coyle-Shapiro and Shore 2007)
Jeffrey Pfeffer (1994) argues that management of workforce is of strategic importance in creating competitive advantage in the market. Organizations are more focusing on practices like job security, high wages, build sense of ownership, empowerment etc. These practices help to sustain the valuable workforce. The employee employer relationship is stand on trust and commitment and this leads towards the loyalty of employees. Many researchers explored the relationship of employee loyalty and job satisfaction and their relative importance of both factors. Healthy employee relationship is converted into employee loyalty in the long run and key to success for the organization. (Ineson, Benke et al.) Many organization put emphasis on maintain trust with their employees and its effect on their loyalty. Trust is also act as intermediary in building loyalty of employees and if trust is build it also show their reflection on loyalty of customers as well. (Hong and Cho 2011)
The understanding of psychological behavior of employees helps in understanding degree of loyalty. The employee attitude during their work reflects their behavior. The employee with the positive attitude has different responses as compared to other have the negative attitude. There are some employees which are not so much responsive and cover their response during their work. Employee having different attitude, resulted in different of loyalty according to their behaviors. The behaviors of employee are very influential for customer satisfaction perspective. (Barry M. Staw 1994) Allen and Meyer (1990) identified the attitudinal loyalty in terms of affective, normative and continuance commitment. Affective Commitment (AC) relates with the attachment with the organization. Normative Commitment (NC) relates with the obligation feelings with the firm. Continuance Commitment (CC) relates with the cost that employees associated while leaving the organization. These attitudes help in calculating the employee loyalty and tells the employee relationship proneness in creating employee loyalty.(Jos??e Bloemer (2006))
LITERATURE REVIEW
It is human nature, when they have to stay together on a same place for a considerable time, they create relationships among themselves. Similar is the case, when any employee works in an organization he/she creates bonds with his/her fellow workers. Now there are extents to the relationships they carry, i.e. some have strong degree of relationships and some have weaker. It also heavily depends on the nature of the person. A very important relationship in an organization is Employee-Employer relationship. It effects the whole environment of the organization. It also affects the effectiveness in the working of the employees. This relationship is the result of number of factors including job security, compensations offered, appreciation for his/her good work, rewards, benefits and most importantly the respect given to the employee in the organization. (Yee, Yeung et al. 2010)
The relationship between the employee and the employer/firm is one of the critical factors of success of the firm. There are number of relationships which exist internally within the firm. This includes relationships among the employees, between employees and supervisors, between employees and supervisors, and between employees and functional departments. However, the most important relationship is between the firm and the employees. The internal relationships are also very important for the external relations i.e. with the customers of the firm. (Herington, Johnson et al. 2009) Richheld concludes that the a sustainable competitive edge can only be built by creating an enduring mutually beneficial relationships build on trust with employees, customers and suppliers. (William Finnie 2002)
The dynamics of employee-employer relationship is changing in the twenty first century. Maslow revisited the employee commitment dynamics. According to Maslow there certain elements of Workforce Commitment like Productivity, Pride and Retention. In Maslow hierarchy of needs there are five levels of need Psychological, Safety, Social, Self Esteem, and Self Actualization. Maslow hierarchy of needs now studied in the organizational setting to understand the level of workforce commitment. In this the researcher trying to figure out the workforce motivator to understand the employees level of commitment. The level of commitment dynamics are held between the organization and an individual employee. In performance pyramid there are five levels of workforce need Safety/security, Rewards, Affiliation, Growth and Work Life Harmony. (Stum 2001)
Stum (2001) elaborates these levels which in results affects the commitment of an employee:
Safety/ Security
In this safety and security is indicating the employee fear, which they face in the organization. In this employee commitment is associated with organizational commitment in providing him job security. The are other factors which helps the employee to drive out his fear like the work place safety and the work environment free from fear.
Rewards
Compensation and benefits is widely accepted motivator of Commitment. The theories suggested that this Motivational element deteriorate as an individual get their jobs because the factors that how much the fairness in process of compensation is really important.
Affiliation
Affiliation is basically the sense of belongingness of an employee with the organization. This affection is translated into the human psychology ‘considered himself more than a worker’. The organization which promotes this culture and strengthen employee by enhancing their affiliation with the organization is on the other hand increasing their level of commitment.
Growth
The dynamics of work environment is changing every moment. In this growth level, the change is not needed not only for individual but also for the organization. The organization wants to improve their process, products and their efficiency level to satisfy their customer needs. The organization must focus on continuous improvement in the process to meet the needs of the customer.
Harmony
Harmony is the sense of realization to balance out work and personal life responsibilities. This idea is similar to the self-actualization.
Employee Proneness
The employee proneness is inclination of an employee towards the organization when an employer builds relationship with the employee. The employee relationship proneness is addressing the psychological attitudes of an employee towards commitment. (Jos??e Bloemer (2006))
For service sector it is very interesting to know which employee is more loyal with their firm. In service sector you have to retain their force because in return they have retained your customer. In contest of employee, employee relationship proneness is the employee tendency or the inclination of employee to engage in relationship with the employer. (Jos??e Bloemer (2006)) According to other researcher, Bendapudi and Berry (1997) and Christy (1996) employee proneness is vary according to the group of buyers. While many studies in the marketing literature focused on relationships based on dependence and locking in employee but RP discusses constructive motivations of employee’s to be in a positive relationship with their employer. (Bendapudi (1997))
Attitudinal Loyalty
In altitudinal loyalty people more focus on their relationship with the organization. In ways it’s a mindset of an individual degree of perceive about the organization. In attitudinal approach research largely identified the antecedent conditions that contribute largely to the commitment and behavioral consequences of that commitment. (Allen and Meyer (1990))
Allen and Meyer (1990) distinguish between three different types of attitudinal loyalty:
‘ Affective Commitment
‘ Continuous Commitment
‘ Normative Commitment
AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT:
Affective commitment is basically employee bond relationship strength, that’s why this is considered as important determinant to loyalty. Affective commitment is sense of belongingness with the organization that increases their involvement in organizational activities and achieving the organization mission and goals. (Linda Rhoades 2001) In affective commitment its person own desire to being with the organization because of the sake of pleasure of relationship and sense of employee loyalty towards the organization. (Jos??e Bloemer (2006))
CONTINUANCE COMMITMENT:
In this commitment employee is in the continuation of actions with the organization. In this employee focus on the cost associated with the discontinuation of actions. The benefits the employee currently has form the organization and also in the future like pension. According to Kanter (1968) ‘Continuance Commitment occurs when profits associated with the continued participation and cost associated with leaving’. In this commitment is basically the cost recognition of continuing and discontinuing of employee action with the organization. (Allen and (1990),) It is the degree of employee relationship with the employer and cost of switching. (Jos??e Bloemer (2006))
NORMATIVE COMMITMENT:
In this commitment individual finds its obligation to stay with the organization. Normative commitment is to be with the organization no matter how much the job satisfaction and status enhancement the employee has over the years. Its individual internalized pressure to be with the organization and meeting with organization mission and goals. In this the personal norms of an individual is might have importance over the behavior. In this the person should loyal to their customer and stay committed and not criticize the organization. (Allen and Meyer (1990))
Behavioral Loyalty
WORD OF MOUTH
It reveals the satisfaction and loyalty of an employee towards its organization. It depicts how much an employee is willing to allege positive things and describe positive attributes of the organization and the work place. It also shows how many time an employee recommend his organizations in his social settings which ultimately depicts his loyalty outside the workplace.
BENEFIT INSENSITIVITY
It shows commitment of an employee with his job and responsibilities and how much he is indifferent about whether he is receiving extra fringes and benefits or not. It depicts employee motivation with regards to bonuses and remuneration he is receiving. If he is indifferent among remunerations packages received from alternative employers, means he is more benefit insensitive and vice versa.
INTENTION TO STAY
Intension to stay shows whether an employee is willing to stay in organization as his first choice of not. If one wants to quit his job or not consider the organization as his first choice, it shows lesser intentions to stay and less loyalty with organizations.
COMPLAINING
It reveals an employee’s willingness to criticize his organizations and leaving/quitting the job. This behavior showing dissatisfaction and less loyalty gives room to the organization to take steps for the problems which has occurred. In other words, employees who score high in this behavior are not loyal due to the discrepancies in the organizations’ system or job description. Relationship proneness would have less impact then to create loyalty for these employees. (Rylander et al., 1997)
INTERRELATION WITHIN THE ATTITUDINAL LOYALTY:
The behaviors and individual characteristics are the dominant factor of commitment. The individual interest in relationship and their response towards different behavior is determining their level of commitment. Employee proneness is an intrinsic motivator of commitment. (Jos??e Bloemer (2006))
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
Our purpose of the study is to facilitate the firms in building relationships with their employees and to create loyalty among them, hence leading the organization towards success because loyal employees go above and beyond to the organization improve. Research question is to find the employee relationship proneness in creating employee loyalty in the telecommunication industry with respect to gender.
We formulate three hypotheses
a) Employee Relationship Proneness has a positive relationship with Affective Commitment.
b) Employee Relationship Proneness has a negative relationship with Continuance Commitment. (reject ho)
c) Employee Relationship Proneness has a negative relationship with Normative Commitment.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
One of the major phases of this project is literature review which almost took 3 to 4 weeks to complete the task. First we need to collect data, for that purpose we have to visit different sales and customer care centers of different telecommunication companies. It costs almost 2 weeks and some transportation cost is also affiliated with this. For analysis of the data and interpreting the results 1 week would be enough.
Literature Review 3 to 4 weeks
Data Collection 2 weeks
Analysis & Findings 1 week
METHODOLOGY & DATA
As our study is of quantitative nature, so we are collecting our data through questionnaire surveys using cluster sampling. These questionnaires are to be filled by the employees of different telecommunication companies working in Pakistan. Sample size would be small from 25 to 30 as it has to be completed by the employees so it is quite difficult to get time from them because of their busy schedule. Sample size was consisting of equal distribution of gender, male and female employees. Survey encompasses employees of five major telecommunication companies in Pakistan where questionnaire were distributed and employees were advised to submit completed questionnaire to a central office. Questionnaire was designed on five-point Likert scale and all questions backed by theories.
Ethical requirements, which have to be taken under consideration, would be the anonymity (to protect privacy rights of employees who are going to fill and submit the questionnaire) and the type of blunt questions (which can reveal the internal information of the company). These two measures taken to purify research conducted to find the in depth relationships among proneness with employers and to reach a vast pool of employees by taking them into confidence.
ANALYSIS
We have to make the questionnaire to measure the attitudinal loyalty of the employees in terms of affective, normative and calculative commitment. During this we will be taking help from the previous instruments to measure the attitudinal loyalty. We will also take into notice about behavioral loyalty among employees to find the final results and recommendation about relationship proneness to create employee loyalty. Finally we will recommend for the telecommunication sector of Pakistan how to increase employee loyalty by taking into consideration relationship proneness to alternative employers.
Questionnaire responses from the employees will be entered and results will be measured using specific software to find correlation among individual variables as well as dependant and independent variable. A mathematical model has been developed to quantify the results and this technique will eventually lead to assurance of objectivity of the research.
The evaluation of results will be on the basis of gender. Results will explain that either any of the group has significance over the other in regards of attitudinal loyalty and relationship proneness or not. Also how much it affects an organization’s success as it is directly related to customer loyalty in service organizations as well. Evaluation of the findings from the research conducted and results measured from the questionnaire responses are as follows:
EVALUATION
Relationship proneness is an individual difference varies among employees and used as an individual variable to measure employee loyalty and commitment to the organization. Hence this study shows that Relationship proneness and employee loyalty have positive correlation with each other and increase as the other goes up. Results of this research conducted shows that relationship proneness is a sturdy predecessor of affective commitment and normative commitment of employees in an organization. While it is negatively correlated to continuance commitment which ultimately leads to having a negative impact on behavior of the employee resulted in leaving the organization and criticism. Studies reveal that Employee loyalty is a crucial asset for service organizations to succeed as it leads to customer loyalty and commitment. (Heskett et al., 1994) Hence affective commitment and normative commitments can boost up to amplify organizations’ performance in telecommunication industry of Pakistan.
To further analyze the aspects, the findings clearly depict a significant relationship among relationship proneness and affective as well as normative commitment. Hence, it can be concluded that relationship proneness can be used as a major tool when there is a need to boost attitudinal loyalty and dedication of employee at work place. Affective commitment has been found the most pertinent aspect of behavior loyalty among employees regardless of gender difference at all levels in an organization’s hierarchy. It has immense potential on all variables of behavior loyalty pertinently willingness to stay.
Normative commitment positively correlated with relationship proneness has potentially positive impact on benefit insensitivity and intensity to stay equally as well. The research results entails that normatively committed employee are better intended to stay in the organization as their first choice but they do not spread positive word of mouth along with recommending their organization as preferred choice among their social contacts. In other words they refrain to voice their commitment with organizations.
Finally, continuance commitment is negatively correlated with relationship proneness and also has a negative potential impact on benefit insensitivity and other variables of behavioral loyalty.
FINDINGS
After critically analyzing all aspects, structural model of research design, questionnaire responses and mathematical quantifications of results, we have found the following relationships among relationship proneness and attitudinal loyalty:
a) Employee relationship proneness has a positive relationship with affective commitment.
b) Employee relationship proneness has a negative relationship with continuance commitment.
c) Employee relationship proneness has a positive relationship with normative commitment.
It can be seen by demonstrated findings of the study that employee relationship proneness can be used to enhance employees’ loyalty and success of an organizations by protecting the human capital. As commitment of employee make them feel secure, more emotionally attached to the organizations and confer a sense of being an essential ingredient of organization’s success.
CONCLUSION
Employees are one of the most important assets of a firm. A firm can’t be successful without maintaining good relationships with the employees. Employees of a firm must be satisfied, so that they can deliver their best. For that purpose, number of studies has done so far. This is a behavioral study, which measures the attitudinal loyalty of the employees with the firm. In future, it also facilitates the organization to build good relationship with the employees and assists the company to create employee loyalty.
This research, based on employ relationship proneness, attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty, demonstrate the need to be very careful and vigilant in the hiring and recruitment process. It is crucially beneficial in any organizations progress although it is more intangible than curriculum vitae.
Results showed that affective commitment is significantly involved in determining one’s behavioral loyalty. Since, it helps to create a sense of belongingness, emotional attachment and inner commitment towards responsibilities at the work place. (Bloemer J., 2006)
According to the findings, normative commitment is also positively related to relationship proneness, having an impact on intensity to stay and benefit insensitivity, can be get enhanced both before and after the entry of an employee in an organization by various ways. One of these ways are employees’ experience and attachment with the organization both prior or afte the entrance. Before coming to organization, cultural and family socialization matters to increase loyalty as if parents of an employee have been in a long term relationship with the organizations or still are receiving pension funds. Loyalty after the entrance can be stressed by organizational socialization, belief that loyalty is expected to be in this organization (Allen and Meyer., 1990)
Results demonstrate the negative relation of continuance commitment and relationship proneness; nonetheless it shows that high continuance commitment leads to lessen benefit insensitivity. It implies that organizations should be careful enough about continuance commitment results because these employees would be more indulged toward more attractive remuneration packages and benefits. These employees are more prone to alternative offers in regards to remuneration. (Wiener., 1982)
RECOMMENDATIONS
i. There would be a part to measure ‘relationship proneness’ during the screening process of employees along with other traditional indicators as abilities, educational background, work experience and other behavioral tests at the time of recruitment.
ii. As affective commitment is a significant determinant of behavioral loyalty, organizations should make sure that every employee is being treated well and being truly cared for to enhance his sense of belongingness and commitments all together. It would be proved helpful in creating and maintain a comfortable and reliable relationship among employee, employer and organization.
iii. Personal coaching, creating a collegial atmosphere, improving working conditions and facilitating employees to perform their job well, will lead to increase attitudinal loyalty.
iv. Employees should be given with more discretion and enabled to satisfy the customers, it will bring employee loyalty and more commitment.
v. To enhance normative commitment, job descriptions and allocating personal responsibilities are helpful in aligning interests of the employees with that of organizations leading to increased loyalty.
vi. Firms have to have capital invested on training and development to create loyalty, commitment and to retain employee those are firm specific.
vii. To retain employee with high potential of continuance commitment, firms should take calculative measures as they are more interested and have an increased sensitivity towards attractive remuneration packages.
viii. Tactics and techniques should be found and used to identify and retain employees who possess high affective and normative commitment and have strong relationship proneness because these employees show high degree of loyalty towards long term success of the organization.
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