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Organizational commitment: how engaging employees can pay off

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Employees are the face of your organization, and can be powerful advocates to attract customers as well. However, despite most company’s knowing the value of their employees, churn rates remain at undesirable levels for most industries. Inculcating organizational commitment in your employees can help build their attachment to your brand.

What is organizational commitment?

This can be described as the view of a company members’ psychology towards their attachment to the company they are working for. It plays a key role in helping determine whether or not your employee is one who intends to stay in your organization for the long term, and work passionately towards achieving the organizations’ goals. 

Determining organizational commitment can help indicate employee satisfaction and engagement levels, job performance and insecurity and other similar attributes. It is important for management to be aware of their employees dedication to tasks which are assigned to them.

Principles behind organizational commitment

Generally one considers the 3 following types of commitment (three component model or TCM)as the principles and theory behind organizational commitment.

Organizational commitment
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Continuance commitment

This level of commitment determines where an employee would likely think that leaving their employers would be costly. Ensuring continuance in commitment also improves employee experience and ensures that an employee would want to stay in a company’s employ for a long term. This happens when the company makes an effort to foster an attachment with their employee. This can be emotional and mental (rational). Employees who have developed an attachment towards their employers are likely to stay for as long as they can.

Affective commitment

This can be described as an emotional connection that an employee has towards their company. This part of the Three component model states that when an employee’s active commitment level is high, they are more likely to stay with their organization for the long term. Affective commitment essentially requires that the employee is happy and engaged in your company’s activities like meetings, and is engaged in helping the organization progress.

Normative commitment

This level of commitment implies that the employee feels an obligation to stay in the company, and that they feel that by staying they are doing the right thing. The factors that lead up to fostering this level of commitment are manifold. It can be a moral obligation to stay or a belief that they have been treated well at this company.

Benefits of organizational commitment

There are several benefits to inculcating such a belief system in your organization. Any benefit that one can expect from decreasing employee churn can be considered as a by-product of organizational commitment.

Creates a team player mentality

This level of commitment usually results in employees who are invested in your company’s success and are good team players. They help boost overall team productivity.

Creates strong advocates for your company

Enthusiastic and dedicated employees are often the best advocates for your company, even after leaving the organization. Tehri belief shows in their work ethic, and this is especially useful in customer facing staff. They believe in your products and services and are keen to constantly improve them.

Better productivity

With organizational commitment, your employees are more productive as they believe in your vision and mission. These employees display more initiative and ensure that their teammates perform to the best of their abilities as well.

Better punctuality

When your staff is committed and motivated they are far more likely to be punctual at the workplace. They look forward to going to work and take pride in their accomplishments. For them, their projects are of utmost importance and they are keen to contribute toward organizational objectives.

How can one inculcate organizational commitment?

Be it improved employee engagement, reduced churn or better performance in customer satisfaction metrics, inculcating organizational commitment is a must. While there is no standard operating procedure for inculcating this mentality in your employees, there are a few guidelines that organizations can follow, irrespective of the industry they’re operating in.

Transparency and open communication from the top down

Employees can only commit to their organization if they’re aware about its business. This needs to include both positive and negative eventualities and reports. Employees are likely to feel more valued when facts and figures about organizational performance are shared with them, and they will be looking to contribute to improvement in their own capacity. 

Communication within the organization must be a two-way street, and employee feedback needs to be valued. This can help fix hitherto unknown issues that have plagued your company, but were not critical enough to have a major negative impact.

Set clear goals and expectations

Everyone wants to be part of a plan – employees like to know that their hard work is leading to something. Setting clear goals enables them to achieve excellence in their job and furthers organizational commitment. 

These expectations need to be communicated clearly which gives your employees a chance to build a sense of ownership regarding their tasks.

Maintain a work ethic that ‘works’

Maintaining a high standard of work ethics ensures that your employees respect the organization. If employees are aware that your company has a high moral standard, they tend to stay associated with your brand in some form or the other. It also helps in fostering organizational commitment as employees feel they have a fair chance at career growth in an organization with a good work ethic.

Customer experience

Foster positivity

Employees need to feel happy to work for your company. It helps them feel motivated and encourages them to be creative in solving their problems. Employees need to feel confident that they can speak with the management about anything without fear of reprisal.

Provide constructive feedback

Things can and do go wrong. Your employees will make mistakes, it’s only human. It’s important to let them know that making mistakes is part of the process. Instead of just providing them with criticism, its important to provide employees with constructive feedback so they know how to avoid such mistakes in future.

Delegate, don’t micromanage

Employees need to feel they are trusted by the organization. By delegating tasks efficiently, you empower your employees to take ownership of their assignments. Micromanaging can reduce employee morale, and dampen their organizational commitment.

Incentivize

Exceptional performance needs to be recognized with incentives. It allows for building a culture in which employees are constantly motivated to work hard and achieve results. Motivated employees are an asset to any company, in any industry, and incentives can help inculcate organizational commitment effectively.

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