Organizational Socialization Essay

Socialization is an important aspect for any organization which affects other aspects like productive behaviour, making new recruits feel like ‘home’ and many others.

Organizational socialization has six dimensions (Chao et al., 1994):

• History

• Language

• Politics

• People

• Organizational goals and values

• Performance proficiency

Out of above six dimensions, the one that is affected most is ‘People’. Letting pets in the workplace helps creating a friendly environment among the co-workers. It has been found to increase the retention rates among employees. The customers who visit companies with such policies have reported to be more comfortable in interacting with the employees because of the casual environment that it creates. Several

This plays a dominant effect in terms of job satisfaction and performance enhancement because positive mood increases the frequency of helping and of other forms of pro-social behaviour. Also it’s known that positive mood and helping behaviour are mutually reinforcing because helping others makes people feel good.

The above para basically highlights the part of job that is normally referred to as Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB). These behaviours are not formally evaluated by organization but they usually helps enhance the effectiveness of work groups. Following behaviours that encompasses OCB have been found to be associated with bringing pets to workplace:

• Altruism: It has been found out that people bringing pets to workplace are usually more altruistic than the ones who don’t. Although it’s not a definitive conclusion but several findings have suggested this. For example an employee may voluntarily assist another employee having difficulty in performing some

Senior managers or employees who bring their pets to work are usually found to be more consistently involving themselves with the ‘lower’ workgroup or the workforce that works under him/her. They usually try to find out how the things are going on or letting others know how to head towards the goal.

• Conscientiousness: It has been found that it also affects the punctuality of employees. Employees bringing their pets along with them are found out be more punctual and more restraining to absenteeism. If we try to link the effect of pets to Campbell’s (1990, 1994) Model of Job Performance, then the performance dimensions (Extra-Role) that seems to be most connected to it are:

• Maintaining Personal Discipline: Several studies have found out that allowing pets in a workplace helps employees refrain from negative behaviours and maintains in them the willingness to complete a task. These are relative extents of characteristics that are found in those without pets.

• Facilitating peer and team performance: This is similar to being altruistic but more professionally. It helps to achieve team oriented goals.

Now if we see this from Murphy’s (1994) model of Job Performance (Extra Role) then following points