Individual Perception

Individual Perception

Paula C. Price

MT302-02

Attitudes can have a significant effect on the behavior of a person at work.

In the world of work we are concerned with attitudes toward supervision, pay,

benefits, promotion or anything that might trigger positive or negative reactions.

Employee satisfaction and attitudes represent one of the key areas of measuring

organizational effectiveness.

Worker attitudes are tendencies to react in a favorable or unfavorable way

toward objects, people, or events, generated by mind-set toward supervision,

pay, benefits, promotion, or anything that might trigger positive or negative

reactions. As a result, employee satisfaction and attitudes represent one of the

key areas for measuring organizational effectiveness, workplace environment,

job satisfaction. Attitudes reflect a person 's likes and dislikes toward other

persons, objects, events, and activities in their environment. It makes sense to

study and know about attitudes because strong attitudes will very likely affect a

person 's behavior. Because of the importance of the links of task, contextual,

and ethical performance with important measures of organizational

effectiveness, one of the key goals of managers should be to create linkages

between employee performance and their satisfaction. However, it is not always

easy to change a person 's attitudes about their work. The reason is that attitudes

toward work may be only one important aspect of the person 's structure of

attitudes. They might be linked strongly to other important ones, making them

deeply embedded, and thereby limiting how much managers can succeed in

altering the way employees feel and act. However, particular attitudes and

satisfactions at work can and do change, sometimes quickly, as events change.

Employees who are happy and productive one day can become dissatisfied

and resentful overnight as a consequence of some kind of managerial action.

Many organizations pay close attention to attitudes by conducting periodic

attitude surveys of employees, and seeking feedback in other ways. The hope is

that by assessing employee attitudes it will provide important information about

the effectiveness of different management strategies.

There are a number of things that we can do to make better judgments

about attitudes of others in evaluating their suitability for almost everything that

goes on in organizations. For example, I have been trained to ask prospective

employees, "How do you feel about working here?" or "How satisfied were you

with the type of work that you did in your previous job?" Attitudes are also

important when evaluating someone for promotion. I 've seen evaluations that

comment, "He doesn 't have a good attitude toward affirmative action" or, "He just

doesn 't believe enough in quality to do the job right." This has taught me to be

very careful and cautious, about judging attitudes of others as well as my own, I

might add. My employer has conducted seminar that teach the management

team to focus on specific, rather than general attitudes. Saying that an employee

has a good or a bad attitude, it is better to try to focus on employee attitudes in

terms of their more specific objects, such as attitudes toward pay, toward

supervision, and so on. This helps decide what to change in the organization,

such as modifying the pay system or training supervisors. There is often very

little that you can do about these general attitudes, since they may reflect the

positive or negative affectivity of the person. It is best not to dismiss or

underestimate the depth of feeling and the behavior associated with attitudes,

values, and beliefs. Attitudes are very important to the psychological well-being

of people and some are strongly held, especially those linked to the person 's

self-image. More importantly, they may be related to attitudes, values, and

beliefs that are not directly related to work itself.

Negative attitudes toward the job or the organization may lead an

employee to want to avoid work or quit, and they may do so because job

satisfaction is negatively related to turnover and to commitment. However, it is

best never assume that a satisfied employee is always a productive employee or

that a productive employee is satisfied. There is a weak relationship between

attitudes and task performance, though it is statistically significant. Periodically

corporations should assess employee attitudes and satisfaction with employee

surveys. It is also useful to involve the employees in the design, collection, and

interpretation of the study. However, be fully committed to act on the findings

and report the actions taken to correct the negative evaluations or surveys.

Companies can be more successful if the management staff learn to accept

people 's tendency to justify, rationalize and explain their beliefs, reduce cognitive

dissonance, and appear consistent to themselves and others and strive to

ensure that they understand as clearly as possible what is expected in terms of

work performance.

In summary, attitudes refer to what people like and dislike; they

predispose them to act favorably or unfavorably toward an object or event. They

function in several ways to help people to adapt to their world. Attitudes are

related to beliefs and values, all of which are acquired from infancy through our

experiences and associations with people, events, and the media. Specific

attitudes can be learned at any time and applied to any experience. Employee

attitudes about various aspects of their job are often studied by employers,

because it is known that attitudes affect attendance, retention, work

commitments, and interpersonal relationships. They affect satisfaction,

performance, and constructive voluntary contributions to organizational success,

and can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of an organization.

There are a number of different factors that contribute to our attitudes

about our work life. Child-rearing practices that affect the individual 's personality

and self-concept can be important early influences. Work socialization is how

individuals must learn about the characteristics and culture of their chosen

occupational field. Organizational socialization is the process of learning about

the norms of our work organization. These may be directly taught by others, may

be learned through the process of observing others, or may be learned through

the process of conditioning, by behaving in certain ways and having such

behaviors responded to in different ways by others.

If we don 't adjust well to our job or the organization in which we work, it

can negatively affect an individual 's performance, morale, and health as well as

those of others associated with them, both at work as well as family members

and friends.

REFERENCES

"The Role of Work and Cultural Values in Occupational Choice, Satisfaction, and Success: A Theoretical Statement," Journal of Counseling & Development, Winter 2002 (Vol. 80, Issue 1), pp. 48-56, by Duane Brown

"Decision Making: A Comparison of Group and Individual Decision-Making Differences," Journal of School Leadership, September 1996 (Vol. 6, Number 5), pp. 555-72, by Raymond L. Calabrese, et al

"The Experience of Work and Turnover Intentions: Interactive Effects of Value Attainment, Job Satisfaction and Positive Mood," Journal of Applied Psychology,1996, 81(3): 318-26, by George, J. M. and G. R. Jones

"Relationship of Career Mentoring and Socioeconomic Origin to Managers ' and Professionals ' Early Career Progress," Academy of Management Journal,

1991, 34(2): 331-50, by Whitely, W., T. W. Daughterty, and G.F. Dreher

"Organizational Behavior and Public Management Public Administration and Public Policy," Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1998, by Michael Lee Vasu, Debra W. Stewart, and David G. Garson

References: "The Role of Work and Cultural Values in Occupational Choice, Satisfaction, and Success: A Theoretical Statement," Journal of Counseling & Development, Winter 2002 (Vol. 80, Issue 1), pp. 48-56, by Duane Brown "Decision Making: A Comparison of Group and Individual Decision-Making Differences," Journal of School Leadership, September 1996 (Vol. 6, Number 5), pp. 555-72, by Raymond L. Calabrese, et al "The Experience of Work and Turnover Intentions: Interactive Effects of Value Attainment, Job Satisfaction and Positive Mood," Journal of Applied Psychology,1996, 81(3): 318-26, by George, J. M. and G. R. Jones "Relationship of Career Mentoring and Socioeconomic Origin to Managers ' and Professionals ' Early Career Progress," Academy of Management Journal, 1991, 34(2): 331-50, by Whitely, W., T. W. Daughterty, and G.F. Dreher "Organizational Behavior and Public Management Public Administration and Public Policy," Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1998, by Michael Lee Vasu, Debra W. Stewart, and David G. Garson