The following a summary of the research and practice implications from: Swider, B. W., Boswell, W. R., & Zimmerman, R. D. (2011). Examining the job search–turnover relationship: The role of embeddedness, job satisfaction, and available alternatives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(2), 432-441.

Have you ever searched for available jobs, even though you were employed at the time?  If so, you are not alone – employed individuals are currently the largest population of job seekers. With so many employees perusing the job market, managers may find it is to their advantage to know that certain influential factors could sway their employees to stay or leave. Specifically, managers may be interested to learn that job satisfaction, the availability of job alternatives, and job investment (i.e. embeddedness), affect employee turnover decisions.

The Job Search – Turnover Relationship

Job searching, or the active pursuit of job opportunities in other organizations, is a precursor to the majority of voluntary employee turnovers.  Despite this trend, all job searchers are not necessarily job leavers and all job leavers are not necessarily job searchers. Research has shown that an employee’s job searching behavior is not enough to accurately predict whether he or she quits. However, managers should keep in mind that job searching gives employees the opportunity to compare their current job against an unknown number of alternative opportunities.

Deciding Factors: To Stay or to Leave

As a manager, you may wonder –  if many of my employees are actively looking at available job opportunities, how can I prevent them from leaving for another offer?

In order to retain job searching employees, managers should be aware of what factors affect their decisions to stay with their current job, or quit and pursue another opportunity. The following are three factors that affect employee’s decisions to stay or leave:

• Job Satisfaction: Employees who are less satisfied with their current working conditions are more likely to accept an alternative opportunity.  One reason for this stems from the intention behind the job search.  Dissatisfied employees are more likely to job search with the intention of finding a replacement job, whereas their satisfied peers are more likely to be testing the market, seeking leverage in their current employment, etc.  In addition, dissatisfied job searchers may accept lower quality job offers than their satisfied peers. In contrast, satisfied employees require substantially better offers before they are willing to leave their current organization.
• Job Embeddedness: Job embeddedness is the degree to which an employee feels unable or unwilling to leave his or her job.  This concept is a combination of three sub-components regarding the employee’s: 1) formal and informal ties with the organization, 2) compatibility with the organization, and 3) cost or sacrifice that would be forfeited by leaving the organization. As a job searcher’s level of job embeddedness increases, the risk of turnover decreases.  In other words, job searchers who have fostered ties with their organization, consider themselves to fit in well with their job and organizational culture, and consider the cost of leaving to be great, are less likely to actually accept a suitable alternative.
• Job Alternatives: A third factor that affects job searchers is the availability of suitable alternative positions. In general, the probability of turnover increases when a job searcher has multiple alternatives to choose from. With that in mind, the employees who are highly marketable, or who have a large number of potential alternatives, are at the greatest risk for turnover.

Practical Implications

It is important for employers and HR managers to foster positive work attitudes and embeddedness in order to retain employees. Workplace initiatives, such as job enrichment and providing a supportive work climate, are proven tactics for increasing job satisfaction.  Job embeddedness can be promoted within the organization ( e.g. work teams and committees) or within the community (e.g. facilitate home ownership).

HR managers may also want to target retention efforts for the high risk individuals, or those who are less satisfied, not embedded in their jobs, and have other alternatives available.  To do so, organizations may benefit from assessing employee work attitudes, employee links to the organization and community, and occupation-level labor trends.

Interpretation by:

Kelly Whalen

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Nyberg, A. (2010). Retaining your high performers: Moderators of the performance-job satisfaction-voluntary turnover relationship. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 440-453.

Voluntary turnover is problematic on any level, however, not all voluntary turnover has the same organizational impact. Specifically, high performing employees are especially costly to lose.

Not only does turnover of high performers lead to costs due to lost productivity, recruiting, and training, but also to losses of overall organizational knowledge and leadership.

Turnover Risk of High Performers

High performers can be viewed as either more or less likely to leave an organization voluntarily. According to one belief, high performers are more likely to stay at an organization, given that there is a clear line drawn from performance to rewards. On the other hand, high performers are more likely to leave when they feel under-rewarded or when there are greater external opportunities.

Some additional factors that change the performance-voluntary turnover relationship are listed below. Factors that impact high performers’ likeliness to turnover include:

• Comparable employees being paid the same amount (or more) for less work, which increases high performers’ likeliness to turnover.
• High performers who perceive that they are being equitably paid for their efforts in comparison to their co-workers, are more likely to stay.

Keeping this in mind, managers must take extra steps to monitor and reduce the risk of high performer turnover.

Performance-Voluntary Turnover Relationship

Both pay growth (the rate that an employee’s total pay changes) and the unemployment rate interact with performance to influence the performance-voluntary turnover relationship, such that high performance leads to low voluntary turnover (and vice versa). Pay growth is important because organizations often use it as a tool to enhance retention. Additionally, on a larger scope, salary growth and bonuses have been found to influence the performance-voluntary turnover relationship.

To combat the likelihood that a low unemployment rate will lead to high performers leaving, it is crucial to keep pay growth high. Moreover, these factors work independently of employee job satisfaction influences.

Practical Implications

Compared to low performer turnover, high performer turnover can be excessively detrimental to organizational success. The unemployment rate and pay growth findings together show that managers should focus extra attention on higher performing employees when the unemployment rate is low, because if pay growth is also slowed, high performers become more likely to leave.

Ultimately, supervisors and upper level managers should keep a few things in mind:

• Due to the differences across performance levels in employee reactions to various organizational environment factors, such as a close relationship between performance and rewards, managers may benefit from tailoring policies toward specific performance groups to achieve desired performance outcomes for each employee.
• Pay growth influences turnover regardless of job satisfaction. Therefore, managers should pay close attention to pay growth.
• Even though current employment markets have produced few job opportunities, managers should remain vigilant about retaining their better performers, who may still be able to find alternative employment.

Interpretation by:

Kandace Waddy

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Ployhart, R.E., Van Iddekinge, C.H., Mackenzie, W.I. (2011). Acquiring and developing human capital in service contexts: the interconnectedness of human capital resources. Academy of Management Journal, 54(2), 353-368.

The phrases “human capital” and “human capital resources” have become buzz words that have gained popularity among HR professionals and researchers. You may wonder, what exactly is human capital, and why should you care?

Defining Human Capital

Human capital, or the combined knowledge, skills, and abilities of a group of people, is often thought of at the unit level.  A unit is simply a general term for any collection of employees that are all working towards a common purpose.  In some organizations, a unit can be a department or team.  For others, it may be the entire organization.  Human capital resources can be considered as either generic or unit-specific.

• Generic Human Capital – Resources that can be transferable across different jobs or organizations (i.e. an employee’s general cognitive ability, personality factors, etc.).
• Unit-Specific Human Capital – Resources that are non-transferable and are only applicable to a specific unit (i.e. knowledge of a department’s unique filing system, the ability to understand an organization’s jargon, etc ).

Human capital is dynamic, which means it is constantly fluctuating over time.  Factors such as constantly improving technology, employee turnovers, organizational climate, and others may lead to differing degrees of importance for the human capital resources that an organization has. With that in mind, should organizations value one type of human capital resource over the other? The answer to that question varies, but understanding the interconnectedness of the two levels may help.

Generic vs. Unit-Specific Human Capital

Imagine that your department needed to transition to a new coding and filing system. After receiving training in this new system employees should possess the unit-specific human capital resources that allow for higher job performance (i.e. they understand the new system, and can use it efficiently).  This higher performance then leads to better outcomes for the department and company as a whole.

Managers should be careful to not overlook the role that generic human capital resources play in the example above. Generic human capital resources are needed prior to adding unit-specific human capital resources.Without them, employees would lack the necessary skills and abilities that allowed for the development of this new skill-set. Therefore, generic human capital resources are often the knowledge, skills, and abilities that an employee can use to master unit-specific human capital resources that are uniquely valued within an organization.

In other words, the employees in the previous example would need to possess enough cognitive ability to understand the new system, before they would be able to master it and increase their productivity.

This connection means that both generic and unit-specific human capital resources are linked to increased job performance, which may lead to increased effectiveness for the unit or organization.

Practical Applications

The interrelated nature of generic and unit-specific human capital means that managers should be aware of both levels of resources.  An increase of generic human capital resources means that, at a future date, there will be an increase at the unit-specific resource level.  A careful balance of investing in the future flow of job performance (i.e. hiring new employees to bolster the generic resources) and investing in the present job performance levels (i.e. internally promoting employees to utilize organizationally-specific knowledge) may help an organization maintain an advantage over its competitors.

Interpretation by:

Kelly Whalen

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Tierney, P., & Farmer, S.M. (2011). Creative self-efficacy development and creative performance over time. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(2), 277-293.

Employee creativity is a critical component of an organization’s ability to be innovative. This creativity, also known as creative performance, refers to an employee’s ability to generate novel and practical ideas or solutions. One effective way that supervisors can increase creative performance is by enhancing their employees’ belief in their own ability to be creative. This belief in one’s own ability to generate creative ideas or solutions is called creative self-efficacy.

Factors Influencing Creative Self-Efficacy

Listed below are two broad factors that play a role in increasing creative self-efficacy in employees.

• Perceived Creativity Expectations. This refers to the degree to which an employee perceives expectations for creative performance from their supervisor. If employees believe that their supervisors have high creative expectations of them, then they are more likely to have high creative self-efficacy. This relationship exists because when employees know that their supervisors believe in their creative abilities, employees strive to meet those creative expectations and, in turn, gain more confidence in their creative abilities over time.
• Formal Job Creativity Requirements. This refers to the degree to which a job requires the employee to create novel solutions to problems that they encounter on the job. Unlike perceived creativity expectations, when a job’s formal creativity requirements are increased, employees experience a decrease in creative self-efficacy. This relationship may exist because greater formal job demands, in general, tend to lessen an employee’s feelings of self-efficacy as well as his overall job performance.

Why is it Important to Promote Creative Self-Efficacy?

It is important to promote creative self-efficacy in employees because increases in creative self-efficacy are related to increases in creative performance. Hence, supervisors should strive to increase creative self-efficacy in their employees by using the factors described above because creative self-efficacy gives employees the confidence they need to be creative problem-solvers.

Practical Implications

To some degree, organizations can shape creative self-efficacy and creative performance in their employees. Jobs vary greatly in how much creativity they require. For jobs that require a great deal of creativity, supervisors should be provided with leadership training on how to increase creative self-efficacy in their employees.

Supervisors should be mindful when adding more creativity requirements into their employees’ jobs because these additional formal demands can decrease employees’ confidence in their ability to be creative problem-solvers. When additional creativity requirements must be added, supervisors should also provide employees with additional training in creativity skill development in order to meet these new job requirements.

Interpretation by:

Mackenzi Harmon

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Barrick, M. R., & Zimmerman, R. D. (2009). Hiring for retention and performance. Human Resource Management, 48(2), 183-206.

As the poor economy and the associated decrease in employee raises and bonuses make it more difficult to retain high-performing employees, organizations need to make pre-hire determinations of which candidates are most likely to stay with the organization. Finding indicators for both performance and turnover enables organizations to use fewer resources when selecting applicants. But, based on the idea that past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior, what are the most useful predictors for high performance and low turnover?

Pre-hire Predictors

Are pre-hire predictors of turnover also effective indicators of work performance?

Several indicators, such as biodata (biographical data) and pre-hire attitudes, have been explored for the purpose of answering that very question. In particular, three types of information are especially strong indicators of job performance and turnover.

• Biodata- predictors that represent pre-hire embeddedness in the organization (employee referral; number of friends and family) and habitual commitment (tenure in prior job; number of jobs in last five years)
• Pre-hire attitudes- includes the applicant’s self-confidence and confidence with decisions, as well as the applicant’s desire for a job and pre-hire intent to quit
• Personality traits- Conscientiousness (being dependable and reliable) and Emotional Stability (ex. Individuals who have low emotional stability tend to have negative perceptions of themselves and their environment.)

Turnover Decisions and Job Performance

Some notable indicators of which employees are likely to remain working for a company six months after hire include: pre-hire embeddedness, habitual commitment, personal confidence, motivation for employment, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Further, beyond the period of six months post hire, up to two years later, the remaining two indicators for voluntary, avoidable turnover are conscientiousness and emotional stability.

The number of jobs held over the previous five years was a better indicator of early turnover, whereas tenure on the most recent job was more predictive of early job performance.

The good news is that most turnover decisions are “functional,” meaning that those employees who tend to stay in an organization tend to be the better performers.

Practical Implications

Learning how to do the job (conscientiousness), meeting the “right” people from whom to learn about the organization (embeddeness), and figuring out the power structure of the firm and the organization’s goals and values are important to employee success and lead to lower turnover during the early stages of an employee’s adjustment to an organization.

While so many of the factors listed above serve as suitable indicators for high performance and low voluntary, avoidable turnover, hiring managers should mainly consider them when hiring for a short-term or seasonal position, due to the fact that most of the indicators are useful for six months post-hire.

Ultimately, personality (conscientiousness and emotional stability) is a useful indicator of voluntary, avoidable turnover up to two years after hire. Further, a personality assessment enhances the usefulness of biodata when the two are used together. Hiring managers should note that with the exception of personality, the importance of all other predictors weakens over time.

Interpretation by:

Kandace Waddy

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Barrick, M.R., Swider, B.W., & Stewart, G.L. (2010). Initial evaluations in the interview: Relationships with subsequent interviewer evaluations and employment offers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(6), 1163-1172.

Structured interviews have long been considered valuable tools for gathering information about job applicants. Although they are comprised of structured questions, these interviews also include an initial rapport-building stage, during which the interviewer briefly engages in small-talk with the applicant.

Three types of information are intuitively gathered by the interviewer in this initial rapport-building stage:

• Competence – How competent does the applicant appear to be initially?
• Affect – How likable is the applicant?
• Similarity – How similar is the applicant to the interviewer?

Each of these three types of information impact subsequent interview scores and outcomes (e.g., job offers). Initial impressions of affect and similarity are irrelevant to job performance and may have a biasing effect on interview scores. However, initial impressions of competence formed during the rapport-building stage may contain job-relevant information.

Rapport-Building Findings

The interviewer’s initial impressions of affect and similarity did impact interview scores and the likeliness of a job offer. Furthermore, initial impressions of the applicant’s competence influenced interview scores and the likelihood of receiving a job offer above and beyond initial impressions of affect and similarity. Overall, better initial impression ratings led to higher interview scores and greater likelihood of receiving a job offer.

Practical Implications

Initial competence ratings may be useful pieces of information when made early in the selection process, such as during career fair recruiting or during a screening interview. These intuitive impressions of the applicant’s competence are more suitable as a “select-out”, rather than a “select-in”, decision aid.

Secondly, initial competence ratings may prove useful for jobs that require a lot of brief, meet-and-greet interactions with a variety of people. In this case, the applicant’s ability to interact effectively during the rapport-building stage of the interview may lend credit to the applicant’s social competence at handling similar social interactions on the job. As a way to capitalize on initial competence ratings, the DeGarmo Group would suggest implementing a structured scoring system that will guide interviewers in rating this interpersonal skill.

Finally, organizations should be cautious about eliminating the initial rapport-building stage altogether from the structured interview for two reasons:

• Interviewers tend to naturally form initial impressions of applicants no matter what.
• The initial rapport-building stage can increase the applicant’s satisfaction with the interview and can function as an opportunity to further recruit the applicant.

Interpretation by:

Mackenzi Harmon

DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: De Pater, I., Van Vianen, A., Bechtoldt, M., & Klehe, U. (2009). Employees’ challenging job experiences and supervisors’ evaluations of promotability. Personnel Psychology, 62 (2). 297-325.

Understanding why certain employees are promoted is critical at both an individual and organizational level. At the individual level, it is important to understand what factors affect career advancement. At an organizational level, a thorough understanding of what factors lead to employee success in a higher position is imperative for succession planning and managing employees. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the various factors that contribute to promotion can be beneficial at both the individual and organizational level.

What Makes an Employee “Promotable”?

Many factors influence whether or not an employee will be promoted in an organization including:

• Job performance – Promotion decisions are often made based on job performance. That is, if employees are successfully completing tasks outlined as part of their current position, it is assumed that they will also have the skills necessary to successfully complete tasks in the next position “up the ladder”.
• Challenging experiences – The type of task that is completed is often another important consideration in promotion decisions. As employees engage in more challenging and complex tasks, their likelihood of success in higher positions increases.
• Promotability evaluations – Many organizations conduct promotability evaluations in order to determine if a supervisor believes an individual could adequately perform at a higher level in the organization. These evaluations can include supervisors’ perceptions of current job performance and work experience.

Each of these factors must be examined simultaneously in order to determine if an employee is ready for a promotion. Job performance alone is not a good indicator, as many times one’s current performance will not be predictive of their success in a more complex position.

Therefore, examining current performance in conjunction with how current tasks overlap (or don’t) with those of the higher position is imperative.  This is because tasks required for a higher position are often more challenging and complex and employees who volunteer for those complex tasks may be more qualified and motivated to take on the tasks that would be required by a higher position.

Ultimately, the decision is based upon the individual’s knowledge, skills, and abilities, to determine whether he or she has the potential to succeed in a more complex position.

Practical Implications

In today’s competitive and ever-changing business environment promotion decisions are important not only to organizations for succession planning, but also essential to individuals interested in career development and advancement. Therefore, several considerations should be taken to ensure success.

• Organizations – To ensure employees are ready for promotion, it is important to evaluate not only the level of current individual performance, but also the types of tasks the individuals are partaking in to determine if they qualify for a higher position.
• Individuals – Individuals wishing to advance their career should be encouraged to take on complex tasks that are a good fit for their current skills and abilities.  During this time, staying connected to the organization and working closely with a supervisor will help to avoid any negative effects (i.e. reduced quality of work, decreased productivity, etc.), as the employee works to increase overall contribution and performance.

Ultimately, the decision for promotion will be up to the supervisor. Many times this decision is important for both the individual and the organization as a whole. Therefore, various factors should be taken into consideration before a final verdict is reached.

Interpretation by:

Elizabeth Allen

The DeGarmo Group

Bloomington, IL – DeGarmo Group (www.degarmogroup.com), is  proud to report that US Cellular (www.uscellular.com) was recognized as a J.D. Power 2011 Customer Service Champion—one of only 40 companies to have earned this distinction this year.

US Cellular uses DeGarmo Group’s talent acquisition systems to select employees who work in their front-line, customer-facing roles such as Customer Service Representatives and Retail Sales Associates, among others.

“We’re happy to see US Cellular recognized with such a prestigious award. We’ve worked very closely with their Talent Acquisition team over the years to ensure that our assessment solutions help to select the best people to fill those critical front-line positions” stated Anthony Adorno, Chief Operating Officer for DeGarmo Group.

To qualify for inclusion on this elite list, companies must not only excel within their own industries, but also must stand out among leading brands in 20 major industries evaluated by J.D. Power. Five key customer “touch points” measured included people, presentation, process, product and price.

To identify the J.D. Power 2011 Customer Service Champions, J.D. Power evaluated more than 800 brands. Companies were identified based on customer feedback, opinions, and perceptions gathered primarily from J.D. Power’s syndicated research as well as additional, supplemental research. This group of 40 represents the highest-performing companies that deliver service excellence to U.S. customers—both within their respective industries and across all industries measured.

According to Alan D. Ferber, executive vice president of operations for U.S. Cellular, “We are especially honored to be named a Customer Service Champion because it’s based on the opinion of our customers. They deserve excellent customer service, and we will continue to work hard to deliver it.”

About DeGarmo Group

DeGarmo Group is a leading provider of web-based assessment and training services to support talent acquisition and employee development processes. We employ a staff with expertise in Industrial and Organizational psychology that regularly contributes to, and draws upon, the latest scientific research to deliver innovative and compelling solutions for our clients.

About U.S. Cellular

U.S. Cellular is committed to fixing wireless one project at a time and recently unveiled The Belief Project, an array of industry-leading innovations designed to elevate the customer experience. The Chicago-based carrier provides the best cell phone service in the country according to survey results released by Consumer Reports, which found that wireless customers are more satisfied with U.S. Cellular than every other major wireless company. U.S. Cellular has the highest call quality and network satisfaction of any national carrier and was also named one of Forbes Magazine’s 2010 “Most Trustworthy Companies.” The Belief Project complements U.S. Cellular’s growing catalog of cutting-edge phones that are all backed by its high-speed nationwide network.

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Kaplan, S., Bradley, J. C., Luchman, J. N., & Haynes, D. (2009). On the role of positive and negative affectivity in job performance: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 162-176.

People are predisposed to experiencing certain levels of approach-related arousal emotions and avoidance-related arousal emotions which influence different aspects of their job performance. Approach-related arousal is generally associated with feelings such as happiness, elation, or feeling energetic. Avoidance-related arousal is generally associated with feelings involving negative emotions. These predispositions, which are called positive affect and negative affect, are different from the emotions a person will experience in reaction to specific events in that affect shows stability across time and even situations. It is important to realize that positive affect and negative affect are not opposite ends of a continuum – one can have high levels of one but not the other, or can have high or low levels of both types at the same time.

Examples of different affect profiles include:

• A person who experiences anxiety or fear (high on both levels). This profile is high in positive affect because anxiety arouses a person to be alert, but it is also high in negative affect because it makes a person want to escape from something.
• A person who feels very relaxed, laid-back (low on both levels). Such a person isn’t experiencing particularly high positive or negative arousal.
• A person who is bored (high in negative affect, low in positive affect). This profile indicates someone who is unenergetic and experiencing negative arousal.
• A person who is cheerful and energetic (high in positive affect, low in negative affect). Such a person isn’t experiencing negative feelings but is experiencing a high level of positive arousal.

Emotions and Performance

Recent evidence provides a clearer understanding of the role of dispositional emotions in work performance. Specifically:

• Positive emotions are related to increased task performance ratings by supervisors
• Negative emotions are related to decreased task performance ratings by supervisors
• Positive affect is associated with increases in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) – i.e., work behaviors that are helpful but not required of one’s position, like volunteering for overtime or assisting a coworker
• Negative affect is associated with decreases in OCBs
• Negative affect is associated with increases in withdrawal and counterproductive workplace behaviors (CWBs) – e.g., theft, absenteeism, abuse, sabotage, etc.
• Negative affect is associated with increased occupational injury

Explaining these Associations

Evidence indicates that the relationships between positive and negative affect and the dimensions of job performance may be mediated by the factors fairness, job satisfaction, and stress. Mediation refers to a factor being a reason why one variable (e.g., emotion) influences another variable (e.g., performance). That is, emotions are thought to influence one or more of these three factors, which then affect performance, in the following ways:

• Perceived fairness is a significant mediator between positive affect and task performance and OCBs
• Perceived fairness is a significant mediator between negative affect and task performance, OCBs, CWBs, and withdrawal
• Job satisfaction is a significant mediator between both positive affect and negative affect and OCBs
• Job satisfaction is a significant mediator between negative affect and withdrawal
• Job stress mediates the association between positive affect and task performance/OCBs
• Job stress mediates the associations between negative affect and CWBs/withdrawal

Affect and Personality

Evidence also indicates that positive and negative affect, which exhibit high associations with the personality traits extraversion and neuroticism respectively, are not redundant with those traits in predicting task performance. Positive and negative affect predict task performance even after extraversion and neuroticism have been accounted for.

Implications for Practice

These results clearly indicate that emotional predispositions are important factors in predicting success in different performance categories ranging from productive behavior to destructive behavior. Suggestions for capitalizing on this knowledge to maximize organizational performance include:

• Screen and hire applicants in part based on their dispositional affect, especially for occupations that are inherently stressful.
• Introduce stress management resources for employees. Examples include employee assistance programs (EAPs) and gym membership information.
• Take steps to increase employee perceptions of fair treatment at work. This can be done by following standard procedures for everyone, letting employees have some input or “voice” when appropriate, or providing sufficient information about why certain workplace decisions have been made.
• Strive to reduce a negative work climate while also striving to create a positive work environment. This can involve reducing personal conflicts in the organization and promoting cooperation among employees.

Recent evidence is much clearer about the roles that positive and negative affect play in employee performance. Employers should consider these emotional dispositions when making decisions about how to increase or maintain worker performance in their organizations.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Loi, R., Yang, J., & Diefendorff, J.M. (2009). Four-factor justice and daily job satisfaction: A multilevel investigation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 770-781.

Job satisfaction has been shown to be directly linked to positive work outcomes such as organizational citizenship behaviors. Although it is relatively stable over time, a person’s job satisfaction does vary on a day-to-day basis. One key aspect that influences a person’s daily job satisfaction is the perception of justice in the organization.

Four-Factor Model of Organizational Justice

Organizational justice is the subjective perception a person has of how fair their organization is. There are four types of organizational justice. The first two are structural forms of justice, meaning they are stable over time. These are:

• Distributive justice – fairness of the distribution of organizational resources.
• Procedural justice – fairness of the organizational procedures.

For example, compensation and rules for allocating pay do not change day-to-day, therefore the fairness perceptions toward the organization based on the distribution and procedures will be stable.

The other two types of organizational justice are social forms of justice, meaning they are more variable and dependent on day-to-day events and interactions. These are:

• Interpersonal justice – fair and respectful treatment within the organization.
• Informational justice – fair amount and timeliness of shared information.

People will encounter different levels of respect and information shared with them depending on the situation. Therefore, their interpersonal and informational justice perceptions are likely to change more often than the structural forms of justice.

How Do the Four Types of Justice Affect Daily Job Satisfaction?

People will base their perceptions of fairness on the most readily available information. While all forms of justice are positively related to job satisfaction, regular appraisals of job satisfaction are heavily influenced by the daily interpersonal and informational justice perceptions, as this information is more current and accessible.

The structural forms of justice enhance (or constrain) the relationship social forms of justice have with everyday job satisfaction.

Specifically, the positive relationship interpersonal justice has with everyday job satisfaction is stronger when there is less distributive justice and weaker when there is more distributive justice. Since distributions of resources and respectful treatment can both be considered as outcomes, when people feel that the distribution of resources is unfair, they will look more to the treatment they are receiving from their supervisors and organization to supplement the lack of material outcomes.

Also, the positive relationship informational justice has with everyday job satisfaction is stronger when there is less procedural justice and weaker when there is more procedural justice. The reason this occurs is if people perceive procedures to be unfair, they will be looking for explanations and information from supervisors to continually assess the situation.

Practical Implications

In today’s competitive marketplace, it is important for employers to provide employees with organizational justice in order reap the positive outcomes of highly satisfied employees.

Managers and supervisors should always strive for fairness in the distribution of resources and the procedures to allocate them. They should also strive to treat employees with respect and dignity and provide timely and sufficient communication.

Being aware of how the different forms of justice interact to influence daily job satisfaction will help managers and supervisors keep employees satisfied, even in situations where some injustice may be perceived.

If employees perceive unfairness in the distribution of resources, managers and supervisors should strive to provide even better treatment to their employees. If employees perceive unfairness in the procedures used to allocate resources, managers should strive for even more two-way communication with the employees.

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

DeGarmo Group