Category Archives: Employee Satisfaction
Say Cheese! How Smiling at Work Can Make You Happy (IO Psychology)
Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Personality
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (SEPT 2012)
Article: Why Does Service With a Smile Make Employees Happy? A Social Interaction Model
Authors: E. Kim, D.J. Yoon
Reviewed By: Ben Sher
If your job requires you to interact with customers, it’s probably a good idea to smile. Nobody wants to do business with someone who looks annoyed, irritated, sad, or like they just found out that their hard drive crashed. But did you know that smiling at customers can actually make you happier?
New research by Kim and Yoon (2012) focused on retail employees, their customers, and the interactions shared between them. They found that when employees smile at customers in order to appear friendly, the employees really do end up in a good mood. Why? The researchers say this is based on the social interaction model, which explains that emotions expressed by employees can affect the emotional response of their customers. The emotional response of the customers in-turn affects the mood of the employees.
In this situation, smiling employees cause their customers to smile in return. This could be due to the natural urge to mimic emotional displays of people we are interacting with, or a more intentional effort to respond in a friendly and polite manner. When customers smile, it’s as if they are saying “I like how you are doing your job!” To the employee, this feels like a positive performance review. Wouldn’t that make you happy?
Another interesting point is that the strength of this finding varies depending on the personality of the customers. Customers who had a high degree of agreeableness (which is someone who is interested in harmony and courteousness) were not as likely to smile in response to smiling employees. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is because agreeable people are not as sensitive to environmental cues when deciding how to respond. Customers with a low degree of agreeableness are more sensitive to emotional cues, and so they are more likely to smile in response to smiling employees. Similarly, customers with a low degree of emotional stability were more likely to respond with smiling when confronted with smiling employees.
Why is this study important? In general, it highlights the role that customers play in employee satisfaction. Managers should not underestimate the importance of this dynamic relationship when trying to improve employee mood and morale. More specifically, this study shows the importance of positive emotional displays. Smiling at customers is not just for show, it’s for your own good too.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Employee Moods and Workplace Proactivity (IO Psychology)
Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Motivation, Performance
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (JAN 2012)
Article: Fuel of the Self-Starter: How Mood Relates to Proactive Goal Regulation
Authors: U.K. Bindl, S.K. Parker, P. Totterdell, G. Hagger-Johnson
Reviewed By: Ben Sher
What could go wrong when you are in a really bad mood? For starters, maybe nobody will like you and you will have no friends. Now that’s bad. But it gets worse: According to research by Bindl, Parker, Totterdell, and Hagger-Johnson (2012), you also may miss
out on opportunities to be proactive at work. Now that’s really bad.
The authors explain that workplace proactivity occurs when employees solve current problems and anticipate future problems. This process involves four different elements, envisioning, planning, enacting, and reflecting. Envisioning involves considering a different future and identifying things that must change to get there. Planning involves considering different ways that the change might occur, and enacting refers to the behavior that brings about the change. Finally, reflecting is looking back to evaluate the success or failure of the change and trying to understand what happened.
So how does mood relate to the elements of workplace proactivity? The authors conducted two different experiments and found that good moods were associated with higher levels of all four elements of proactivity. But not all good moods are the same. The authors explain that moods can involve different levels of activation. This refers to the extent to which a person is motivated and ready to act. Specifically, it was the good moods that involved high activation that were related to proactivity.
But what if you really are stuck in a bad mood? Don’t worry, there is a small consolation prize. The authors found that bad moods were related to higher levels of the envisioning element of proactivity, provided that the bad mood involved a low level of activation. These people, say the authors, use their bad moods to focus on the need for improvement, which is the first step of the proactivity process.
Still, the implications of this study are clear. Good moods that are coupled with high levels of activation or motivation are good for the workplace. Not only do these moods lead to proactivity, but the authors note that proactivity has itself been directly related to work performance. This study is just another reason why it’s so important to keep your employees happy.
Bindl, U.K., Parker, S.K., Totterdell, P., & Hagger-Johnson, G. (2012). Fuel of the Self-Starter: How Mood Relates to Proactive Goal Regulation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(1), (134-150).
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
source for picture: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
Creating Happiness at Work! (IO Psychology)
Topic: Culture, Employee Satisfaction
Title: The Science Behind the Smile
Publication: Harvard Business Review (FEB 2012)
Author: Gardiner Morse
Reviewed by: Liz Brashier
In a recent interview with psychologist Daniel Gilbert, Morse (2012) examines new research into an investigation of happiness from a scientific perspective. Happiness, long considered to be a topic better suited for philosophers or writers, is now moving into the realm of data analysis and scientific query, and Gilbert fills us in on what this new work might mean for our understanding of happiness.
You might be wondering if it’s even possible to measure something as personal and subjective as happiness. Gilbert gives us a resounding “yes” before delving into various methodologies for assessment. Across the various academic disciplines researching happiness, including neuroscience and psychology, important findings appear to be emerging. On the whole, we don’t seem to be that good at predicting what will make us happy over time. As studies reveal, we tend to overestimate the value of “happy” events in making us happy while we overestimate the value of “unhappy” events in making us sad. A break-up, the start of an exciting job, or a failing grade on exam don’t make us anywhere near as happy or unhappy as we predict. So why is that? According to Gilbert, we are excellent at finding good in any situation – we are naturals at wanting to feel happy despite our circumstances. On the flip side, when great things happen, we’re good at “snapping back to reality” quickly, and we enjoy the moment while staying realistic.
Gilbert calls this concept of finding the best in bad situations a form of “synthetic happiness.” It’s what we create for ourselves when bad things happen; real, or natural happiness, is what we experience when good things happen. So what does all of this mean for an organization? Employees function best when they are challenged, which creates a sense of natural happiness and fulfillment. Reward and respect – not punishment – is best for producing happy employees. Also, the frequency, rather than the intensity, of our happy experiences is much more meaningful in creating happiness – focus on a constant stream of good experiences for employees instead of one big reward every so often.
So go to work with a smile, challenge and reward employees, and remember that the “bad” things we experience on the job will have much less of an effect on your happiness than you think!
Morse, G. (2012). The science behind the smile. Harvard Business Review, 90, 84-90.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Beyond Sexual Harassment: The Importance of Considering Workplace Aggression (IO Psychology)
Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Sexual Harassment
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (SEP 2010)
Article: Comparing Victim Attributions and Outcomes for Workplace Aggression and Sexual Harassment
Authors: Hershcovis, M. S., & Barling, J.
Reviewed By: Thaddeus Rada
Sexual harassment is a common, negative component of organizational life that has received a good deal of research attention in IO psychology in recent years. However, while understanding this phenomenon is undoubtedly important, there remain other forms of organizational misconduct that can also have a substantial negative impact on organizations and their employees. One of these forms of misconduct is workplace aggression, defined by the authors of the current articles as “nonviolent negative acts perpetrated against organizational members, which organizational members are motivated to avoid” (p. 875). There are several characteristics that sexual harassment and workplace aggression share, but workplace aggression is unique in that it is likely to be experienced, by both men and women, as an attack based not on a particular group affiliation (i.e. gender, race, religion, etc.), but rather, on them personally as an individual.
Hershcovis and Barling conducted two studies that evaluated how reactions to sexual harassment and workplace aggression differ. First, the authors conducted a lab experiment, which revealed that participants made stronger internal attributions (among other attributions) after reading a hypothetical scenario in which they were the target of workplace aggression, relative to participants who read a scenario in which they were the target of sexual harassment. Second, the authors conducted a meta-analysis assessing the role that workplace aggression and sexual harassment each have on a number of organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Here, the authors found that workplace aggression was more strongly correlated than sexual harassment with a number of outcomes, suggesting that workplace aggression may play a stronger role in influencing these outcomes than sexual harassment does.
As the authors of the article point out, a lab experiment with a relatively small sample size was utilized in the first study; as such, the current findings should be treated as tentative, and studies should be conducted in the field to see if similar results are obtained in a more natural environment. However, the results obtained by Hershcovis and Barling hold promise for improving our understanding of the impact that workplace aggression can have on employees. Although sexual harassment has received more legislative and legal attention to this point, it may be the case that workplace aggression is just as damaging, and therefore worthy of additional attention from organizational stakeholders.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Life Isn’t Always Fair: Using Inducements & Contributions to Predict Employee Satisfaction
Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Evidence-Based Management, Rewards
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (JUL 2011)
Article: Promised and Delivered Inducements and Contributions: An Integrated View of Psychological Contract Appraisal
Authors: Lambert, L. S.
Reviewed By: Thaddeus Rada
One of the most common complaints an employee may have with their employing organization is that they are not be fairly or adequately compensated for the contributions that they are putting into the company. A complaint of this type gets down to the concept of a psychological contract, which consists of inducements and contributions. Both of these come in two “varieties,” promised and delivered. Promised inducements or contributions are commitments that an organization or an employee, respectively, commit to providing to the other. Delivered inducements or contributions are what the organization or employee actually provide to the other, which may deviate from the promised inducement or contribution.
Together, the balance, or lack thereof, between these four components determines the overall quality of the psychological contract between an employee and the organization they work for. The current study, by Lisa Schurer Lambert, addresses a gap in the psychological contract literature: the comparison, by employees, of inducements to contributions, particularly with respect to the weight that employees give to each component.
Do Stronger Ties with Peers & Bosses Mean Stronger Relationships with Subordinates? Suprisingly Yes!
Topics: Leadership; Job Attitudes; Employee Satisfaction; Employee Turnover Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology, Volume 95(6), November 2010, pp. 1071-1084.
Article: Well-connected Leaders: The Impact of Leaders’ Social Network Ties on LMX and Members’ Work Attitudes
Authors: V. Venkataramani; S.G. Green and D.J. Schleicher
Reviewed by: Mary Alice Crowe-Taylor
Leaders have upward ties to their bosses and lateral ties to their peers in their organization, so they are embedded within the organization’s social network. In this study, those leaders who had higher quality ties with their bosses and were more likely to be sought out by their peers for organization-related advice reaped many benefits in their ties with their employees. That is, their members (their subordinates and others they influenced) perceived them as having greater status in the organization. Additionally, this member perception of status was positively related to the leader-member exchange (LMX). That is, the exchange relationship was more trusting, respectful and mutually obligatory when the perception of leader status was greater.
On the flip side, what about the leaders who had less network connections (not as sought out for advice by peers; had weaker ties to their bosses)? Well, they were perceived as having less status and their exchange relationships with their employees were weaker as well (there was less trust, respect or obligation in the relationship).
The researchers of this study suggest that organizations need to support informal networking between leaders, their peers and their bosses to strengthen perceptions of leader status among their members. Their leaders and the organization as a whole would reap the benefits of greater ties (stronger leader-member exchange).
This study used innovative data gathering methods like peer advice networks for measuring centrality in social networks, and they used multiple sources of data, giving their results greater credibility. Additionally, they employed statistics which were correct given the complexity of their model and the data.
Exhausted Employees? They May be Reacting to Your Goal-Oriented Leadership
Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Culture, Personality
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (NOV 2010)
Article: The Downside of Goal-Focused Leadership: The Role of Personality in Subordinate Exhaustion
Authors: S.J. Perry, L.A. Witt, L.M. Penney, and L. Atwater
Reviewed By: Mary Alice Crowe-Taylor
The heart of goal-focused leadership (GFL) is to elicit goal-oriented behavior from employees by emphasizing goal achievement. In theory, GFL should contribute to employee’s resources for handling stress at work by clarifying goals, suggesting ways to achieve goals, structuring tasks and verifying attainment. However, depending on the employee’s personality, this emphasis on goal achievement may or may not be perceived as supportive.
In employees who are less conscientious (less achievement oriented), can GFL cause exhaustion? Yes, if these employees also have low emotional stability. That is, if they are more often distracted by worry and are prone to pessimism. Inherently, these employees have the least “resources” to assist them, and goal-focused leadership may produce exhaustion, through an inability to cope with the stress demands.
Are Higher Paying Jobs More Satisfying?
Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Job Attitudes
Publication: Journal of Vocational Behavior (OCT 2010)
Article: The relationship between pay and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis of the literature
Authors: T.A. Judge, R.F. Piccolo, N.P. Podsakoff, J.C. Shaw, and B.L. Rich
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger
We all want a job that pays well, right? How many of us think things like “if I could only make that much more, I would be happy”? Tempting to think such things isn’t it? These questions, of course, address the old debate of whether pay leads to satisfaction. We’ve all heard anecdotes about people who make lots of money and are miserable yet many of us can’t help but think that more money would make us more satisfied.
In an extensive meta-analysis, Judge et al. recently put this issue to the test to find out if employees find higher paying jobs more satisfying. While their results suggest that within organizations, higher pay is associated with higher job satisfaction, the relationship was not very strong. Not surprisingly, the results also suggest that pay level is more strongly related to employees’ satisfaction with pay specifically than with the job overall. Moreover, the fairly weak relationships between pay level and satisfaction were consistent across several countries (U.S., Great Britain, India, Australia, Taiwan).
Judge et al.’s study suggests that while increased pay is associated with increased satisfaction with one’s pay and job, these relationships are not as strong as we might assume. If employees truly want satisfying work, then searching for the best paying job is probably not the way to go.
The authors note that attractive characteristics of the leaders and the actual job are likely better predictors of job satisfaction than pay level.
While these results also suggest that increasing pay alone is probably not the best way to improve employees’ attitudes, Judge et al. warn that this does not mean that pay does not have any motivational power. Nevertheless, being a pay leader in the industry is unlikely to boost organization-wide satisfaction as employees are well known to compare themselves to others and there is evidence that pay is satisfying only to the extent that it is higher than comparable others (e.g., coworkers).
Creating “I-Deal” Jobs … Do Individual Redesign Negotiations Work?
Topic: Job Design, Employee Satisfaction
Publication: Journal of Organizational Behavior
Article: Beyond top-down and bottom-up work redesign: Customizing job content through idiosyncratic deals (FEB 2010)
Authors: S. Hornung, D. M. Rousseau, J. Glaser, P. Angerer, M. Weigl
Reviewed By: Sarah Teague
Job redesign efforts are undertaken on a daily basis in organizations world-wide. It involves re-evaluating a particular job to determine whether or not steps might be taken in order to improve various outcomes including employee job satisfaction and organizational productivity. Traditionally, two approaches have dominated the literature: top-down and bottom-up. Job redesign refers to efforts from management (or other organizational authorities) to enhance the intrinsic motivation of the job. Alternatively, job redesign is initiated by the employee and may or may not be legitimately recognized by the employer (i.e.job crafting).
A recent article by Severin, Rousseau, Glaser, Angerer, and Weigl (2010) investigates a middle ground approach involving individual negotiations that they refer to as i-deals. These i-deals are initiated by the employee (as in bottom-up) and authorized by a supervisor (as in top-down). Results show that the extent of i-deals (successful individual negotiations) is positively linked to leader member exchange (LMX) here as a proxy for, job complexity, job control, and work engagement, while negatively linked to work stressors. In other words, individuals who received approval for i-deals were both happier with and more engaged in their work.
Task i-deals can result in beneficial effects for the employee and the organization when done correctly (and fairly across employees), but the authors stress that they should not be viewed as a replacement for traditional top-down redesign efforts that strive to make all jobs meaningful and intrinsically motivating.
Why Work Group Satisfaction Matters
Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Job Performance, Teams
Publication: Personnel Psychology (SPRING 2010)
Article: Satisfaction, citizenship behaviors, and performance in work units: A meta-analysis of collective construct relations
Authors: D.S. Whitman, D.L. van Rooy, and C. Viswesvaran
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger
The happy worker is the productive worker, right? Not necessarily. Indeed, much of the past research on job satisfaction (which is extensive, to say the least) suggests that at the individual employee level, job satisfaction and performance are weakly related. This finding, however, tends to go against common sense. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to believe that employees who are satisfied at work perform better than those who are not as satisfied or dissatisfied at work? It apparently does to many researchers and thus the search for clarification continues.
A recent meta-analysis by Whitman, van Rooy and Viswesvaran (2010) suggests that while the relationship between satisfaction and performance may be weak at the individual level, satisfaction may still be important for predicting performance when measured at the work group/unit level. In other words, Whitman et al. hypothesized that work units with more satisfied employees may tend to outperform work units with less satisfied employees. It is important to mention that work unit-level satisfaction represents an aggregate of the group members’ levels of job satisfaction. That is, every group member plays an important role in determining the satisfaction level of the work unit.
As the authors also note, there are a number of performance indicators (i.e., productivity, customer satisfaction, withdrawal behaviors, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs)) that can be meaningfully measured at the work unit level.
Whitman et al.’s results suggest that job satisfaction at the work unit level is, in fact, important for predicting a variety of performance indicators. And importantly, the relationships tend to be stronger than those found in past research measuring these outcomes at the individual employee level. Specifically, work units with satisfied employees are more productive, engage in more OCBs, and receive higher customer satisfaction ratings than work groups with less satisfied group members. Moreover, satisfied work units have lower rates of turnover and absenteeism.
So while the satisfied employee may not necessarily be the productive employee, the satisfied work group does seem to be the more productive unit!
