Research reports. Re-inventing employee commitment: The 1998 America at Work Survey

Citation

(1999), "Research reports. Re-inventing employee commitment: The 1998 America at Work Survey", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 14 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmp.1999.05014bab.001

Research reports. Re-inventing employee commitment: The 1998 America at Work Survey

Research reports

Re-inventing employee commitment: The 1998 America @ Work Survey ­ The Loyalty Institute Aon Consulting

All organisations need committed employees to compete and succeed. Yet employee loyalty is not what it used to be. We have entered a new phase in US business in our challenge to develop and keep workers who are committed both to their work and their company. Aon Consulting's The 1998 America @ Work Survey confirms that today's most valuable and committed workers often put career development and life/family issues ahead of company goals. In short, today's "committed" employees will go the extra mile only if they feel they can enhance their careers and achieve personal or family goals. Why the shift?

Management changes such as merging, globalising, "rightsizing" and out-sourcing no longer promise lifetime employment. Increasing competition for scarce talent has encouraged productive workers to seek greener pastures and more personal time. In line with general changes in society, fewer Americans today are blindingly loyal to authority figures or name brands. They want to know "what's in it for me?".

Committed employees?

Employees who give their best to help an employer meet its business goals are best characterised as committed. But how do you recognise them? Ongoing research into workforce commitment resulted in the Workforce Commitment Index (WCI) established by Aon Consulting's Loyalty Institute. It found that such workers work hard to improve their value to their employer, make personal sacrifices to ensure the employer's success, recommend their company as a good place to work, promote their organisation's products and services and feel their workplace is one of the best and intend to stay.

What drives workforce commitment?

Aon Consulting measured 17 key factors or "drivers" of workforce commitment. The factor with the greatest impact on workforce commitment is how strongly management recognises the importance of one's personal and family life. Other factors are:

• •

  direction the organisation is heading;

• •

  opportunities for personal growth;

• •

  satisfaction from everyday work;

• •

  encouragement of ideas to improve the way things are done.

Work/life balance

Employees are intensely interested in how to balance the demands of work with personal and family life. The survey found three aspects of work/life balance that appear to affect commitment significantly:

1. 1.

   Management's recognition of the importance of personal and family life.

2. 2.

   Co-workers' support of an employee's needs as a person as well as a worker.

3. 3.

   Balance between the job and other parts of an employee's life.

To examine further how work/life balance issues affect employee productivity, the survey asked employees about time they missed from work during the past year as well as how much time they spent weekly on the telephone at work handling personal matters. Interestingly, the average number of days increased 10 per cent from 1995 research. Excluding employee sickness, where average reported absences actually decreased, missed time to handle various personal matters increased 22 per cent over 1995.

Management of change

Change is inevitable in the workplace. The success of the employment relationship, therefore, appears to depend largely on how well the employer manages the ongoing process of change. A successful organisation is aware of and ready to deal with change.

The survey results show a large majority of employees feel their organisation is ready to make the changes needed to stay, or become, competitive. In turn, employees have somewhat greater confidence in the ability of work groups to take quick action than in management's ability to modify operations or take the necessary action steps to deal with change issues.

Organisational culture, leadership and direction

Employee commitment reflects the organisation's culture, quality of its leadership, where it appears to be heading and whether employees are encouraged to contribute ideas. The survey results show that US companies generally are meeting their workers' expectations in these key areas.

A company's direction is significant to employees as they evaluate their relationship with an employer. Fortunately, the vast majority of respondents are comfortable about this issue.

Opportunities for personal growth have long been accepted as a form of reward within the employment relationship. Employees who do a good job expect their careers to grow. In this 1998 study, most workers feel their expectations in this area are met or exceeded.

Benefits and compensation

Not surprisingly, pay and benefits are still the foundation for choosing a new employer or for leaving the present one. This remains true for the entire survey population, even when answers are categorised by marital/dependent status, gender and age. Interestingly, for employees age 40 and over and for married employees with no children, benefits are at least as important as salary. Medical plans, retirement plans, vacation, sick leave and short-term disability are important to employees ­ in that order. But when the availability of various benefit plans is correlated with commitment, some new trends emerge. The benefits plans that correlate best with employee commitment are:

• •

  Stock purchase/ownership plans.

• •

  Profit sharing/cash bonus plans.

• •

  Defined benefit pension plans.

Allowing employees to choose their own benefits has increased in importance and correlates significantly with commitment. These programmes give employees a stake in the future success of the organisation. Employees are also likely to be highly committed to the organisation when they clearly understand the overall compensation programme and believe the compensation programme provides internal pay equity.

Employee selection, training and development

Employees evaluate the strength of the team they are playing on. Survey respondents show a keen interest in how well their co-workers' skills are keeping pace with job demands and about 40 per cent believe their co-workers' skill levels fall short of what the job requires.

One reason for this concern may be the pace of change in the workplace ­ re-engineering, mergers and acquisitions, technological advancements and new completion ­ causing the demand for skills to outpace what the labour market can deliver. Survey respondents indicate even more concern about the motivation and attitudes of new recruits. The results imply that employers must be diligent in screening and selecting the skills needed for success: both hard skills such as problem solving, maths and reading comprehension as well as the attributes of attitude and motivation.

What can organisations do?

Given the major issues uncovered in this study, certain actions may help any organisation:

• •

  Acknowledge employees' needs to balance work and personal lives.

• •

  Establish and communicate programmes.

• •

  Help employees relate benefits to reducing stress caused by work/family pressure.

• •

  Allow employees to share in company success.

• •

  Provide skill development opportunities.

• •

  Design benefit schemes to increase commitment.

• •

  Tailor benefits to workforce demographics.

• •

  Learn more about employees' expectations of the organisation's culture.

• •

  Create opportunities from employee input ­ promote two-way communication.

• •

  Screen applicants for both "hard" and "soft" skills.

Conclusion

The 1998 America @ Work Survey presents general trends about factors that drive commitment. Senior management within organisations should listen to employees using whatever vehicles currently in place such as sensing groups, focus groups or surveys. They establish two-way communication.

Every employer knows that the employee who goes the extra mile is the one to keep. It used to be easy to keep valuable performers: pay well, give good benefits, have an annual picnic and finish off a career with a nice retirement ceremony. But today's American workplace is different and so is the American worker. Today's competitive employer must be able to develop employees who will be truly committed to the organisation's business objectives.

The 1998 America @ Work Survey provides a unique source of information about the state of the US worker and the effectiveness of various organisational and human resource practices from the employee's perspective. Aon Consulting conducted 1,800 in-depth telephone interviews in early 1998 to investigate how five major areas correlate with workforce commitment:

1. 1.

   Work/life balance.

2. 2.

   Benefits and compensation.

3. 3.

   Organisational culture, leadership and direction.

4. 4.

   Management of change.

5. 5.

   Employee selection, training and development.

Although not a substitute for internal employee opinion/commitment surveys, results of this national study highlight opportunities for constructive change and provide benchmarks for studies of specific employee groups.