Employees’ attitudes have long been recognized as important factors that affect their behavior at work. Recent research has looked into what specific attributions about HR’s motives influence employees’ work attitudes and customer service behavior.

Employee Attributions

An attribution is an explanation that a person makes about other peoples’ intentions and actions. Attributions are important because different people can come to very different conclusions about the same thing based on making different attributions. Regarding HR practices, employees can attribute positive intentions behind those practices such as a desire for service quality and employee well-being. However, employees can also attribute negative intentions to HR practices and may think that only desires for cost cutting and even employee exploitation underlie their implementation. An example of an HR practice that can be taken either way by employees is giving employees increased job responsibilities and duties.

Attributions and Attitudes

Evidence suggests that employees have more positive attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and commitment to the organization) when they attribute HR’s policies to a desire by the company to promote quality and employee well-being. On the other hand, the same research also indicates that when employees attribute negative motives to HR they tend to have more negative work attitudes. Attitudes seem not to be affected by attributions when employees believe that policies are put in place for external motives (i.e., union or legal compliance purposes); in other words, it appears that employee attributions have their greatest effect on their work attitudes when employees are inferring about intentions of motives internal to their organization.

Attitudes, Actions, and Customer Satisfaction

Research shows that employees’ attitudes meaningfully affect their willingness to perform organizational citizenship behaviors like helping others, following rules, and regularly attending work. Importantly, but perhaps not surprisingly, employee helping behaviors are positively associated with customer satisfaction. Thus, the attributions employees make about HR intentions affect their attitudes, which in turn affect their actions at work and subsequently influence an important outcome in customer satisfaction.

Implications for Practice

Based on these results, human resource professionals should attempt to:

• Assess employee attributions of policy implementation to understand their perceptions of HR management intentions.
• Make sure the organization is clearly communicating its policies and procedures to stakeholders in a noticeable manner.
• Ensure as best as possible that policies are implemented the same across departments and units by all supervisors to make sure that all employees will similarly interpret organizational motives.

By following the above suggestions, unintentional or unwanted attributions by employees about HR practices may be reduced or reversed. This can be significant not only for employee-management relations, but for customer service satisfaction as well.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Nishii, L. H., LePak, D. P., & Schneider, B. (2008). Employee attributions of the “why” of HR practices: Their effects on employee attitudes and behaviors, and customer satisfaction. Personnel Psychology, 61, 503-545.

Speaking up refers to employee willingness to voice to supervisors when they believe something isn’t right in the workplace or could be improved. By speaking up on such issues, employees can alert their supervisors to potentially serious problems within or involving the organization. However, some employees are more likely to speak up than others. One factor that influences employees voicing their concerns is mental detachment.

Mental Attachment to Work

Before mental detachment is described, first mental attachment will be defined. Mental attachment is when an employee feels particularly attached and identified with the organization. While related to having better relationships with one’s supervisors, feelings of attachment to one’s workplace do not automatically lead to a greater frequency of speaking up about workplace issues. This is because many people like their workplaces for some of the same reasons that make the workplace ineffective. That is, some people are attached to their work because a faulty status quo actually works in their favor.

Mental Detachment from Work

On the other hand, having a negative view of a supervisor’s leadership abilities or feeling that one’s supervisor is abusive results in employees having a greater desire to quit their jobs, also known as mental detachment. Employees essentially stop caring about what happens at the organization, which contributes to their not voicing about potential improvements or problems.

Implications for Practice

Here are a few suggestions for how to prevent mental detachment from occurring with your employees while also promoting speaking up to supervisors.

• Encourage feedback on what is and is not working from employees. Outlets for feedback may include a suggestion box, a hotline-type system, and an “open door” policy where individuals can feel free to communicate with their supervisors.
• Take steps to improve the quality of relationships between employees and their supervisors.
• Enact procedures to reduce and eliminate supervisors’ abuse of employees.
• Be proactive in encouraging and rewarding employees for challenging ineffectiveness in your organization’s status quo.

Managers and supervisors don’t always know what is effective in their workplaces, so they must rely on feedback from subordinates who are often much closer to the potential issues. Creating conditions that encourage employees to speak up and not detach mentally from work can facilitate this important feedback process.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Burris, E.R., Detert, J.R., & Chiaburu, D.S. (2008). Quitting before leaving: The mediating effects of psychological attachment and detachment on voice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 912-922.

Sometimes managers and business owners are required to make tough decisions, and these decisions don’t always result in favorable outcomes for every employee.  Both research and practical experience have shown us that employees’ perceptions of decisions can have dramatic outcomes for the organization.

If an employee believes that he has been treated unjustly, this can lead to a number of negative outcomes for the organization including lower performance, higher turnover intentions, and higher deviant behaviors at work.   When an employee believes that she has been treated fairly, this can result in positive work outcomes such as higher job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, and higher performance.

Fairness and Perceptions of Justice

One way to increase employees’ perceptions that they have been treated fairly is through procedural justice.  Procedural justice occurs when the processes and procedures taken to make a decision are perceived as fair.  If an employee believes that the steps taken to reach a decision are fair and just, then she is more likely to be satisfied with the outcome of the decision – even if it is not in her favor.

One way of increasing perceptions of procedural justice is by giving employees “voice” in the decision-making process.  This includes letting employees express their opinions and weigh-in on the issue at hand.  Giving employees a voice in the decision-making process will let them know that you value their input. Another way of increasing perceptions of procedural justice is by making sure that the decision-making process is fair and unbiased.  Transparency of the process will help increase perceptions of procedural justice.

Personal and Social Identity Violation

Unfortunately, sometimes procedural justice just isn’t enough to overcome an unfair outcome. When decision outcomes violate employees’ personal and social identity – deeply rooted moral convictions and connections to groups with whom they identify (such as a work group, organization, or occupation) – how the decision was made does not seem to matter.

When an individual’s personal or social identity is violated, he will search for flaws in the decision-making procedure to justify his anger and dissatisfaction with the outcome. Often, this process results in the employee believing that employee opinions or voice were not considered during the decision-making process. This can lead to negative reactions from the employee.

Practical Advice: Good News and Bad News

The good news is that in many situations, managers can take steps to minimize perceptions of unfairness by providing employees a “voice” in the decision-making process and by ensuring that fair procedures are followed throughout.

The bad news is that when a decision outcome violates an employee’s social or personal identity, fair procedures might not be enough to assuage negative reactions of employees.

Managers can take proactive steps to avoid negative employee reactions by anticipating which types of situations will not be aided by procedural justice. These might include issues that individuals may have a strong moral conviction about or any types of decisions that will impact a particular group, such as a work group or a profession.

It’s also important to keep in mind that people are protective about the members of the groups to which they belong, so when a decision is made that negatively impacts an individual, other employees who share group membership with that person may become dissatisfied.

However, in order for an employee to perceive that an injustice was perpetrated, he or she has to believe that there were no other suitable alternatives for the situation. Therefore, managers can emphasize a lack of suitable alternatives or inevitability of the current situation in order to minimize negative reactions.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

The DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Mayer, D.M., Greenbaum, R.L., Kuenzi, M., & Shteynberg, G. (2009). When do fair procedures not matter? A test of the identity violation effect. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 142-161.

Employees’ perceptions of fairness greatly influence their workplace attitudes and behaviors. Employees are more likely to have positive attitudes and engage in behaviors that benefit the organization when they perceive the organization to be fair. When employees perceive unfairness, they are more likely to have negative attitudes and engage in workplace behaviors that can be detrimental to the organization.

On What Is Fairness Based?

In the past, most research regarding organizational fairness, also called justice, has focused on the fairness of workplace events. Specifically, it has focused on how people assess the fairness of the procedure, treatment, information, and outcomes in relation to a particular event (e.g., performance appraisal).

Recently, the focus of justice research has shifted to a more comprehensive perspective, that is, people assess the fairness of entities involved in the workplace and workplace events, not just the isolated event itself. Employees tend to assess their supervisors’ and organizations’ overall fairness, as these are often the two entities perceived as responsible for the day-to-day aspects of the employees’ work lives.

Employees’ comprehensive assessments have been broken down into key rules most often used to assess these entities’ (i.e., the supervisor and organization) propensity to be fair. Recognizing these rules helps manage employees’ fairness perceptions, which influence important organizational outcomes.

Assessing the Fairness of the Organization

The key rules that employees use to assess organizational fairness include:

• Organizational support: Pleasantness of work environment and the amount of opportunity for professional development.
• Organizational flexibility: Degree of flexibility offered by the organization in regard to employees’ work schedules and how the work is completed.
• Organizational diversity: Degree to which the organization values all types of diversity among its staff.
• Organizational turnover: The tenure of the employees at the organization.

Higher organizational support, flexibility, and diversity, coupled with a lower turnover rate, leads to greater perceptions of organizational fairness.

Assessing the Fairness of the Supervisor

The key rules that employees use to assess the fairness of their supervisors include:

• Supervisor support: How accommodating and supportive of subordinate professional development the supervisor’s behavior is.
• Supervisor flexibility: Flexibility granted by the supervisor in regard to work schedules and how the work is completed.
• Supervisor traits: The personality, characteristics, and style of interactions used by the supervisor.

The higher the supervisory support, flexibility, and desirable traits, the higher likelihood that the employee will perceive the supervisor as fair.

Other Factors Employees Assess

An increase in perception of fairness in one entity is related to the fairness in the other. For example, employees who view their supervisor as fair may see the supervisor as a representative for the organization, and therefore, a major factor in determining the fairness of the organization.

However, employees also base their fairness perceptions on information gathered from other coworkers. Hearing of a coworker’s past experience with the supervisor or organization can make an impression on the employee by revealing certain traits or aspects that the employee may not have known otherwise, or by reinforcing an impression that he or she already formed.

Additionally, employees can often slightly differ day-to-day in their perceptions of the organization’s fairness depending on their mood.

Practical Implications

Based on the key rules that employees use for assessing fairness, supervisors and organizations can better manage their employees’ fairness perceptions by doing the following:

• Advertise and emphasize organization’s positive work environment, developmental opportunities, diversity, and low turnover rate in internal newsletters and in recruitment brochures and presentations.
• Provide support to employees (e.g., strive for a positive work environment, reasonably accommodating to employee needs, and providing opportunities for employee development).
• Provide flexibility to employees (e.g., adjustment of work schedules and how they complete their work).
• Foster a climate of fairness in which all entities are perceived as fair, as there is reciprocity in fairness perceptions of entities.
• Provide opportunities for social communication in which employees can share their stories and experiences related to the supervisors’ and organizations’ fairness (e.g., potlucks, “brown-bag” events, conferences, and happy hours).
• Provide employees an outlet for their emotions and opportunities to experience positive emotions (e.g., open-door policies, employee assistance programs, wellness programs, team retreats, recreation teams).

Following these suggestions can help organizations ensure that employees have greater perceptions of fairness, leading to the employee maintaining more positive attitudes and job behaviors.

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Hollensbe, E. C., Khazanchi, S., & Masterson, S. S. (2008). How Do I Assess If My Supervisor and Organization Are Fair: Identifying the rules Underlying entity-based justice perceptions. Academy of Management Journal. 51 (6), 1099-1116.

Organizational commitment, trust in managers, and organizational citizenship behaviors are much desired attitudes and behaviors in employees. A significant aspect that drives these attitudes and behaviors is the perception of fairness or justice within the organization. Thus, it is important to determine how employees evaluate justice and what reactions result.

How Do Employees Evaluate Justice?

Within the field of Psychology, two paradigms exist which attempt to understand how employees evaluate justice. First, the event justice paradigm suggests that employees evaluate a particular event based on the specific time and situation (e.g., I was given complete and timely information about the new evaluation procedure).

The second paradigm, social entity paradigm, suggests that employees evaluate the social entities (e.g., boss) perceived as responsible for the event and develop more global justice perceptions of the entities’ overall propensity to perform fair behaviors.  Two social entities particularly relevant to employees’ global justice perceptions are their (1) managers or supervisors and (2) the organization.

By blending these paradigms, one is able to more fully understand how employees evaluate and react to the fairness of events.

Employees can have differing perceptions of how fair their organization or supervisor is; therefore, even though employees may experience a similar event, fair or not, their reactions vary based on their preexisting view of the social entities involved.

Importance of Social Entity Justice

The relationship between event justice perceptions and employee reactions toward the organization (e.g., organizational commitment vs. abuse of sick time or the organization’s internet) and managers (e.g., trust in managers vs. undermining their authority) are moderated (meaning affected or strengthened) by the fairness of the social entity perceived accountable for the specific event.

The relationship between event justice perceptions and organization-directed reactions is moderated by perceptions that an organization is fair. Therefore, if employees are exposed to an unfair workplace situation, but otherwise perceive the organization to be fair, they will be less likely to negatively react toward the organization based solely on disappointment about an unfair event.

However, if in this case the employees perceive the organization to be generally unfair, their preexisting view will be confirmed and they will likely assign greater blame on the organization and negatively react toward it.

Notably, the overall fairness of the manager reduces detrimental reactions toward both the manager and the organization.

Practical Implications

Overall, social entity justice perceptions are a better predictor of employee reactions than are event justice perceptions.

To decrease the likelihood of negative reactions and increase the likelihood of positive organization- and supervisor-directed reactions, such as organizational commitment, trust in managers, and organizational citizenship behaviors, organizations should improve employees’ social justice perceptions by:

• Training managers and supervisors to be fair and convey fairness throughout the workplace (e.g., provide fairness-oriented training via the web, manuals, in-person training).
• Directing managers and supervisors to do their best to show that the organization as a whole is fair (e.g., treat all employees equally, give adequate and timely information about new processes)
• Building a culture of fairness by communicating importance of fairness and making fairness a priority in all management practices (e.g., be open about managerial procedures, encourage employees to voice concerns about any perceived injustice, show employees that their concerns are heard).

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

DeGarmo Group

This was a summary of the research and practice implications from: Choi, J. (2008). Event Justice Perceptions and Employees’ Reaction: Perceptions of social entity justice as a moderator. Journal of Applied Psychology. 93 (4), 513-528.