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: 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

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Mesmer-Magnus, J.R., & DeChurch, L.A. (2009). Information Sharing and Team Performance: A Meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(2), 535-546.

Organizations increasingly utilize teams as a basis for structuring work and decision-making. A central reason for utilizing a multi-person format for making decisions is for reaching decisions of higher quality than possible by a single individual.

A key ingredient to successful team-based decision-making is the sharing of information among members. How, and what, information is shared between members greatly impacts the team’s decision-making ability.

Information shared among members of a team can be classified on two dimensions:  uniqueness and openness.

Information uniqueness

The extent to which team members make use of each other’s distinct sets of knowledge can greatly benefit the team.

The more unique the information and knowledge possessed by each team member, the greater amount of information shared among the team, resulting in greater team decision-making performance.

Open sharing of information

The more open members are in sharing information with each other, the greater the opportunity for stronger trust and cohesion between members, leading to increased opportunities for members to interact. The more interaction between members, the more familiar they become with each other, thus more open information sharing.

Effectively utilizing uniqueness and openness

Some important elements for effective team-based decision-making include:

• Create a structure for team discussion.

Initiating a structure for team discussion leads to more unique information sharing, as keeping the discussion focused ensures each individual will be able to share their unique information.

• Compose teams appropriately.

Member diversity is important for increasing the potential for sharing unique information. However, member similarity – not diversity – leads to open sharing of information. Teams must be composed with an appropriate balance of similar (for open sharing) and dissimilar (for information uniqueness) individuals.

• Create a cooperative environment

The more team members cooperate with each other, the more cohesive a group they become, leading to easier sharing of information with one another.

In order for organizations to make the most of team-based formats, they need to ensure members have access to as much relevant information as possible. By focusing on how teams are composed and operate, the greatest amount of unique information is shared openly, leading to more effective decisions.

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Hausknecht, J. P., Hiller, N. J., & Vance, R. J. (2008). Work-unit absenteeism: Effects of satisfaction, commitment, labor market conditions, and time. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 1223-1245.

Employee absenteeism can be very costly to the organization. With the average daily cost for an absent employee estimated at $500, it becomes obvious that an annual decrease of one absence per employee can add up to substantial gains for an organization.

Looking at Absenteeism

Researchers and organizations alike have often considered absenteeism to be an individual problem. The standard solution has been to take action to minimize the absences of those individuals who have higher absenteeism rates. While this is not to be discounted as a strategy, looking at work-units as a whole is emerging as a less resource intensive, but equally effective, method of decreasing absenteeism.

Why Work-Units?

Work-units, a collective group of employees with similar jobs, supervisors, and hierarchical positions in the organization, tend to share similar attitudes about the organization and job. Theoretically, as new members join the group, the collective attitudes of the group influence the new members, leading to more cohesion throughout the group. The two most important attitudes, as they relate to absenteeism, are job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Job Satisfaction

The collective sense of satisfaction with important aspects of the job, like supervision, coworkers, and job activities, is known as unit-level job satisfaction. It has been found that higher levels of job satisfaction for the collective work group are related to decreased absenteeism. Some of the potential reasons for this relationship include:

• A greater sense of community and involvement among work-unit members
• Greater levels of support from coworkers within the unit for emotional (e.g., coping with personal issues) and logistic (e.g., transportation problems) causes of absenteeism
• The emergence of a culture with an emphasis on coming to work to support the other members of the work-unit

Organizational Commitment

An overall sense of attachment to the organization is described as unit-level organizational commitment. Similar to job satisfaction, more organizational commitment for the work-unit tends to lead to decreased absenteeism. Greater amounts of organizational commitment may lead to a more intense desire to do what is right for the organization, such as attending work whenever possible.

Joint Effects of Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

While job satisfaction and organizational commitment have been independently related to absenteeism, the combined effect of these two can be exponential. In other words, when a work-unit has high levels of both job satisfaction and organizational commitment absenteeism rates are much lower than when only one of the attitudes is high or when neither is high. Interestingly, it appears that organizational commitment is more important to absenteeism than is job satisfaction, because the beneficial effects of high levels of job satisfaction are minimized when organizational commitment is low, while the inverse is not necessarily true.

Practical Implications

A new picture is being painted regarding absenteeism at the unit-level, suggesting that undertaking process changes designed to increase organizational commitment and job satisfaction of a unit may be fruitful endeavors.

Since the concept of examining unit-level absenteeism is a fairly new one, interventions designed to increase organizational commitment, job satisfaction, or both at the unit-level have not been tested. One suggestion is to implement unit-level absenteeism goals and absenteeism competitions across units, each with substantive rewards, as this may lead to more cohesive groups and greater levels of organizational commitment and job satisfaction.

Final Thoughts

The relationships between organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and absenteeism suggest that work units create their own unique cultures, separate from those of the organization. For the organization as a whole to realize decreased levels of absenteeism, each of these unique cultures needs to be developed such that absenteeism within the work-unit is not an acceptable practice.

Interpretation by:

David Daly

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Gibson, C. B., Cooper, C.D., & Conger, J. A. (2009). Do you see what we see? The complex effects of perceptual distance between leaders and teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 62-76.

Phrases like “being on the same page” or “seeing eye to eye” indicate a level of agreement in understanding among two or more people. Understanding is especially important when the parties in question are teams and their leaders. A lack of mutual understanding between leaders and teams can result in maladaptive actions that impede performance and development.

Perceptual Distance

Perceptual distance refers to the amount of disagreement between what a leader perceives versus what a team perceives. The greater the perceptual distance between a leader and his or her team, the more likely each side will have different ideas about what is being done or should be done.

Different expectations or pursuing conflicting courses of action can lead to negative feelings for both team members and leaders. Such discrepancies can also result in teams and leaders failing to recognize or capitalize on catalysts, which are events or things that stimulate teams to break out of a stale routine or ineffective performance pattern. Examples of catalysts include performance appraisals and being aware of group processes, such as conflict, within one’s team.

Goal Accomplishments and Perceptual Distance

When leaders have a higher sense of goal accomplishment than their team, there is a negative effect on performance. Interestingly, performance tends to be much lower when teams have a higher sense of goal accomplishment than do their leaders. Performance is best when the perceptual distance between leaders’ and teams’ ideas on goal accomplishment is small, and both have a high sense of goal attainment.

Constructive Conflict and Perceptual Distance

Constructive conflict is conflict centered on developing productive solutions to challenges by using debate and discussion. This type of “good” conflict exhibits a similar set of relationships with perceptual distance for teams and leaders as does goal accomplishment. That is, performance is more negatively impacted when team members’ believe they have enough constructive criticism while their supervisor thinks they don’t use enough constructive criticism.

Implications for Practice

Based on these results, human resource professionals should:

• Have a clear set of explicit work goals (e.g., meeting a deadline) that are mutually understood by both teams and their leaders.
• Develop a common idea of low, medium, and high performance that teams and leaders both can independently recognize.
• Encourage more sharing of ideas between supervisors and teams on how to increase performance.

Overall, ensuring that supervisors and their teams work together on having similar conceptions of goal achievement and constructive conflict can pay off in improved production and development.

Interpretation by:

Don Johnson

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Mathieu, J.E, & Rapp, T.L. (2009). Laying the foundation for successful team performance trajectories: The roles of team charters and performance strategies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94 (1), 90-103.

As team-based work becomes an increasingly common and important part of modern organizations, it’s important to ensure that teams use the most effective strategies to maximize performance.

There are two important aspects of team-based work that teams must manage to improve their performance: task-work and teamwork.

• Task-work deals with how teams accomplish work tasks.
• Team-work deals with how teams work with each other and with other teams.

Managing both task-work and team-work requires that teams invest time into planning these activities before starting work on the task at hand. Often, teams consider planning activities to be low-priority, but in reality, putting time into these activities up-front can lead to significant performance gains and reduced process loss in the long run.

Team Charters

A team charter lays out the plans for how the team will manage various teamwork activities, or in other words, an operation plan that will guide the team through the work process. Team charters have several purposes, including:

• Clarifying roles and expectations for team members
• Determining the team’s strengths, as well as areas that may require additional development
• Identifying stakeholders and opportunities that may aid in accomplishing the team’s goals
• Specifying how the team will make decisions if conflicts arise (e.g. through voting vs. consensus)
• Setting up feedback mechanisms and processes for performance evaluation.

The team charter can be developed either by the team as a whole, or by the team leadership or other managers. However, it’s important that all team members agree to the terms of the charter before work begins, so that everyone is “on the same page.” Step-by-step resources about how to develop a team charter are abundant online; a search using the term “team charter” will provide many examples.

Performance Strategies

Performance strategies explicitly delineate what the team intends to do and how they intend to accomplish the required tasks. This includes:

• Prioritizing goals and objectives (short-term and long-term)
• Delineating a plan of action that will address each of the required tasks
• Defining the specific tactics that will be employed to achieve the team’s goals
• Contingency planning and developing alternative strategies to task completion

As with the team charter, make sure that all team members are “on board” with the performance strategy in order to increase commitment and performance.

Teams as dynamic entities

Like living beings, teams can be thought of as having a life cycle with a beginning, middle, and an end. Similar to living creatures, events that take place early in a team’s life can have a profound impact on how it functions later in life. By establishing structured team-work and task-work patterns early on, teams can promote effective functioning for the future. Some components of high-quality planning include:

• Having an orientation toward the future

• High levels of interpersonal interaction between team members

• Accurate knowledge about team strengths and weaknesses

• Clearly-defined roles for team members

• Adequate and accurate resource allocation

Teams that establish a quality charter and performance strategies early in the process will be able to concentrate efforts on performance rather than dealing with administrative issues, mistakes, duplication of work, miscommunications, or other process-loss issues – ultimately leading to higher levels of performance.

Practical Advice

There are several ways to promote increased team-work and task-work among work groups.

• Team-work. Encourage teams to develop charters that are both complete and consistent.
  • Rather than stating that “group meetings will be held as necessary,” a complete charter might lay out a schedule for meetings as well as details on when and where the meetings are to be held and what topics are to be discussed.
  • A consistent charter will match team members’ skills and expertise to their assigned tasks.
• Task-work. Performance strategies should be as specific as possible.
  • Teams should develop performance outcome goals for the future (e.g. yearly, 5 year) in terms of return on investment, revenues, net income, etc.
  • Performance strategies should identify key markets and outline plans to target those markets through pricing, brand image, advertising budget, product line breadth, etc.

The best performance outcomes are a result of a combination of sustained high-quality team-work and task-work. Although the initial time investment into these planning activities is significant, the performance gains that result can be substantial.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Hartel, C. & Page, K.M. (2009). Discrete emotional crossover in the workplace: The role of affect intensity. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 24 (3), 237-253.

Emotions in the workplace have been frequently discussed for  some time now. Surprisingly, there has been little focus on the amount individuals’ experiences at work are interwoven with the experiences of those they interact with.

This phenomenon is known as crossover- the process by which an individual’s emotional state influences the emotional state of another individual.

When Can Crossover Occur?

Crossover can occur during positive and negative work events. For example, during positive work events (e.g., exciting new project) an employee’s heightened work engagement can crossover to coworkers. On the other hand, during negative work events (e.g. unrewarding, tedious project) an employee’s burnout can crossover.  Also, stress and anxiety have been shown to crossover within colleagues of the same work environment.

Crossover and Affect Intensity

Crossover is partially controlled by the degree an individual experiences emotion, also known as affect intensity.  More specifically, Affect Intensity (AI) is described as the varying intensity in which individuals experience emotions in reaction to workplace events and people such as upcoming deadlines or supervisors.

Individuals with high AI tend to focus more on the negative or positive side of things; therefore, they report stronger emotional reactions than those with low AI.”

Because of their higher emotional reactivity, high AI individuals may be more susceptible to crossover, especially from one individual with high AI to another with high AI.

Thus, understanding AI within each individual may lead to better management of crossover within the work environment.

Implications for Practice

Applying the knowledge of crossover, one should strive to reduce the number of negative work events and encourage a more positive work environment where positive crossover can occur. Specifically, one should implement practices that encourage:”

• Increases in positive emotion and action, which lead to positive resources including creativity and problem solving.
• An “undoing effect,” where those encountering negative emotions (e.g., anger or fear) overcome negative physical reactions more rapidly.
• An “upward spiral,” where individuals are more resilient and thus better able to overcome negative outcomes while seeking out positive ones – through crossover “upward spirals” occur at the individual, group, and team level.

Although these may seem quite obvious, consider the following:  positive emotions have been linked to helping behaviors, creative problem-solving, collaborative negotiation, and effective decision making strategies.  Satisfied employees are more likely to feel engaged at work, be intrinsically motivated, committed to a company, and receive higher performance ratings.  Employee satisfaction can lead to positive crossover effects, which leads to better morale within the workplace and higher positive outcomes.

Overall, positive emotional crossover is likely to have beneficial effects at the individual and organizational level, while understanding negative implications of crossover (e.g., burnout) may allow for better control of these outcomes.  Lastly, understanding affect intensity can help predict individual employees’ susceptibility to emotional crossover

Interpretation by:

Adam Bradshaw

The DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Leach, D. J., Rogelberg, S. G., Warr, P. B., & Burnfield, J. L. (2009). Perceived meeting effectiveness: The role of design characteristics. Journal of Business Psychology, 24, 65-76.

We all have them. Some people organize them. Some people lead them. Some people simply attend them. Most of us dread them: meetings.

In the workplace, it is common for people to describe meetings as notorious time-wasters. So why do we still schedule and attend meetings? Do we still have a glimmer of hope that we can make them effective? Most advice in the popular media on meeting effectiveness is simply the writer’s opinion, based on their experiences and preferences. So what actually leads us to perceive a meeting as effective?

Meeting Design Characteristics

There are several design characteristics that a meeting can possess. These include having:

• An agenda provided before the meeting in written form or provided at the meeting in written or verbal form.
• Minutes recorded to clarify the main conclusions and follow-up that is necessary.
• Punctuality of the start and end time of the meeting.
• Facilities that provide appropriate comfort and minimal distractions.
• A chairperson or leader who directs the pace of the meeting and keeps discussion on topic.

These characteristics serve to provide the components necessary to maximize the effectiveness of meetings. But do all of these characteristics equally lend to the perception of meeting effectiveness?

Which Design Characteristics Matter Most?

Although all of the listed design characteristics have a positive relationship with perceived meeting effectiveness, two in particular stand out: (1) use of an agenda, and (2) proper meeting facilities.

Providing an agenda in advance of the meeting can allow attendees to prepare for the meeting, resulting in more effective contributions. When using an agenda, it’s also important that it be completed. Agenda completion suggests to the attendees that they got the most out of the time they invested. It can also serve as an indicator of good meeting management.

Using proper meeting facilities is a critical component in making a meeting effective. Seating arrangement, lighting, room temperature, and refreshments should all be considered to maximize attendee comfort, and minimize distractions which ultimately lead to more effective meetings.

The Role of Attendee Involvement

Attendee involvement has a direct effect on perceptions of meeting effectiveness – the more involvement there is, the higher the attendees meeting effectiveness.

Attendee involvement also mediates the relationship between the design characteristics and perceptions of meeting effectiveness: the use of design characteristics affects the level of attendee involvement, which in turn affects the perception of meeting effectiveness.

This mediating relationship is particularly apparent for the following design characteristics:

• Agenda use/completion
• Punctuality
• Proper meeting facilities

These characteristics lead to greater attendee involvement, which in turn leads to greater perceptions of effectiveness.

Other Things to Consider

While these design characteristics lead to greater effectiveness for meetings, there are two additional characteristics to consider: size and duration.

The size of the meeting is important to consider because large meetings are generally associated with less attendee involvement, therefore more likely to be perceived as ineffective.

The duration of a meeting can affect perceptions of meeting effectiveness, especially when the meeting is lengthy and the agenda is not completed. In these instances, longer meetings are perceived as less effective than shorter meetings.

Practical Implications

Meetings have the potential to be very effective in reaching organizational goals. With the current economic downturn and the negative perceptions surrounding most meetings, many companies are cutting back on the number of meetings they hold, as they require substantial staff time.

For those meetings that remain, it is important for organizers to consider the factors that lead to the highest levels of attendee involvement and perceptions of effectiveness.

Particularly, organizers should incorporate, follow, and complete an agenda and provide proper meeting facilities.

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Reinsch Jr., N.L., Turner, J. W., & Tinsley, C.H. (2008) Multicommunicating: A practice whose time has come? Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 391-40

In today’s fast-paced workplace, it is often common for employees to have multiple, simultaneous demands on their time.  One of the ways these demands can manifest themselves is when employees carry multiple conversations at the same time – also known as multicommunicating.

What Is Multicommunicating?

Multicommunicating is defined as “engaging in two or more overlapping, synchronous conversations.” This process is made possible through the use of various communication technologies such as instant messaging, text messaging, videoconferencing, or email.

Multicommunicating can be a beneficial process, because when used effectively it can increase efficiency and productivity. However, multicommunicating is also a demanding process. The intensity of multicommunication can vary based on several factors:

• Number of conversations - The greater number of conversations the employee is engaged in, the higher the demand will be.

• Pace of each conversation - The pace of each conversation might differ based on the method of communication – instant messaging tends to move at a faster pace than email. As the pace of each conversation increases, the intensity experienced also increases.

• Integration of social roles - Everyone plays different roles in life; some of these might include employee, supervisor, parent, child, friend, etc. When playing multiple roles at the same time, the intensity of the multicommunicating experience increases. For example, videoconferencing with a supervisor at work while simultaneously sending an email to a subordinate will be more demanding than having conversations with two peers.

• Number and challenge  of topics - Each conversation in a multicommunication event may revolve around a separate topic.  In addition, some topics may be more challenging than others. The more topics that an individual is engaged in at the same time, as well as the level of challenge of each topic, will determine how demanding the experience will be.

Which Conditions Facilitate Multicommunicating?

Often, whether or not employees engage in multicommunicating depends on factors within the organization. Two of these factors that facilitate multicommunicating are the availability of technologies that allow employees to multicommunicate and organizational norms that encourage or discourage multicommunicating.

• Availability of technology - As mentioned before, communication technology that allows employees to participate in multiple, simultaneous conversations is necessary for multicommunication to occur.  How often multicommunicating occurs in an organization depends on how much these communication technologies are available.

• Organizational norms - Organizational norms determine which behaviors are considered acceptable and appropriate within an organization. Across different organizations, there is a continuum of acceptable multicommunicating behaviors. In some organizations, it may be considered rude or unprofessional to carry on multiple conversations at any time; in other organizations, it might be perfectly acceptable or even encouraged to multicommunicate whenever possible. Most organizations fall somewhere in between, considering multicommunicating more or less acceptable depending on the situation.

Drawbacks of Multicommunicating

Multicommunicating can be an extremely beneficial practice because it allows individuals to connect with multiple people over shorter periods of time, and thus can increase efficiency and productivity. However, it does come with some notable downsides.  Because the employee is required to divide his or her attention over multiple conversations, there is an increased chance of error – e.g., misunderstanding a response, sending a response to the incorrect person,  or being unable to maintain pace with one or more of the conversations.

Practical Advice

Multicommunicating has both benefits and drawbacks; it is a practice that can be useful at times and detrimental at others. Therefore, it is important to train employees so they will be able to use multicommunication when it will be most appropriate and effective. This will depend on your organization.

In order to promote the use of multicommunicating within your organization, provide employees with access to communication technologies that facilitate multiple, sequential conversations such as chat software or cell phones equipped with text messaging. It’s important to offer training to employees for using these various technologies.

To decrease or discourage multicommunicating, establish strong organizational norms and policies and procedures against the practice by letting employees know these behaviors are not acceptable.

Most organizations fall somewhere in the middle – sometimes it is appropriate or necessary to multicommunicate, but sometimes it is unacceptable. Through the use of these practical suggestions – training, organizational norms, and organizational policies – you can let your employees know how to use multicommunicating in a way that will benefit your organization.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

The DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Walker, A.G., Smither, J.W., & Waldman, D.A. (2008). A longitudinal examination of concomitant changes in team leadership and customer satisfaction. Personnel Psychology, 61, 547-577

Satisfied, loyal customers are essential to the success of almost every business. A happy and loyal customer base can increase profitability for the organization in several ways:

• These customers tend to purchase more, and may be more likely to pay a premium for quality service.
• Expenses related to attracting new customers (i.e., marketing costs) can be reduced.
• Satisfied customers can increase business through “word of mouth” referrals.

The Influence of Team Leadership

New research shows that one way to increase customer satisfaction is to improve the team leadership skills – managers who improve their team leadership skills also enjoy increased satisfaction among their customers.

Why is quality team leadership so influential on customer satisfaction? High quality team leadership results in a happier, more cohesive, and more productive team of employees who in turn provide better service to their customers. In addition, effective team leaders provide their team members with the resources to serve their customers most effectively.

What Does Effective Team Leadership Look Like?

Team leadership is “the process of moving or influencing a collection of individuals toward common objectives or vision.”

Effective team leaders:

• Recruit and select competent team members, and help them successfully integrate into the group.
• Clearly communicate strategic objectives or vision and share important information about the organization.
• Help the work team to establish standards for measurement of progress and performance and help the team identify opportunities to improve performance.
• Encourage mutual trust and acceptance among team members and help the team resolve differences.
• Take advantage of unique skills of team members and distribute work assignments to best utilize team members’ skills.
• Promote fairness and equal participation among team members.
• Help the team develop creative problem solving skills.

Practical Ways to Improve Customer Satisfaction

Organizations can use these findings to improve their customer satisfaction by:

• Conducting assessments to determine which specific team leadership behaviors are most useful in improving work team effectiveness.
• Designing and implementing development and training programs to increase managers’ team leadership skills based on assessment results.
• Track changes in team leadership skills and customer satisfaction in a systematic way to determine how improvements in leadership skills improve customer satisfaction ratings.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

The DeGarmo Group