Essay On Employee Commitment

Employee commitment allows an organisation to grow and be competitive and thus this is very important to determine the performance of employees. Some people tend to think that commitment is another word for motivation but these are two different terms. Commitment makes employees more willing to work and it is said to be the level of connection that employees feels toward the organisation. Indeed it is the psychological attachment to the organisation. They feel that their place is here in that particular organisation and they are keen to continue working for it. The term “commitment” has got various definitions by different organisational scientists. According to Buchanan (1974) most scholars define commitment as being a bond between the employee and the employer. For example Porter et al (1974) defined commitment as the relative strength of the individual’s identification with an involvement in a particular organisation and Mowday et al (1982) identified three characteristics of commitment which are:
• A strong desire to remain a member of the organisation
• A strong belief in, and acceptance of, the values and goals of the organisation
• A readiness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organisation
Meyer and Allen (1991) and Dunham et al (1994) identified three types of commitment which are the affective one, the continuance and the normative commitment. The affective commitment is defined as the emotional attachment, identification and involvement that an employee has with its organisation and goals (Mowday et al, 1997, Meyer & Allen 1993). For example employees who feel like being at home in their place of work get engaged with the organisation because of affective commitment. The continuance commitment is the willingn...

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...’s commitment and these are the following:
• Fairness: eliminating one’s feelings, prejudices and desires to achieve a proper balance between conflicting interests
• Trust: employers must create an environment of trust doing what they say they will do, being consistent, maintaining confidences, being a role model of behavior, encouraging employee involvement, allowing people to make decisions that affect their work, allowing people to make mistakes without fear or ridicule and to learn from mistakes, explaining reasons for major decisions and acting on employees suggestions.
• Concern for employees: employees should be regarded as people not as factors of production. Employers should provide job security as far as possible, train and develop employees, be flexible to accommodate employees’ issues, be opened and honest and allow employees to have a life outside work.