Part One Understanding the Supervisor’s Role
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These helpful aspects of performance center around cooperative behavior and good citizenship, including employees:³
Helping co-workers with a job-related problem.
Accepting orders without a fuss.
Tolerating temporary impositions without a complaint.
Helping to keep the work area clean and uncluttered.
Making timely and constructive statements about the department or its supervisor to outsiders.
Promoting a work climate that is tolerable and minimizes the distrac¬tions caused by conflict between workers.
Protecting and conserving company resources such as parts, supplies, and money.
Supervisors appreciate these types of employee behaviors because it makes their own jobs easier. When employees act in this manner, it also frees up the supervisor's time to perform more creative tasks.
A recent study by Bateman and Organ confirmed the idea that em¬ployees who are satisfied with their jobs are likely to be good corporate citizens. The researchers studied aspects of cooperation and citizen¬ship such as compliance with rules and requests, altruism, dependability, housecleaning, waste of resources, conflict with co-workers, and punc¬tuality.4 Many of these behaviors increase productivity in the long range. For instance, if enough employees are careful with company resources, more will be accomplished with fewer resources. A furniture manu¬facturer conducted a “zero waste” campaign in order to reduce cost. Within 60 days, employees were producing more furniture but using less wood and glue. (The increase in volume reflected more furniture orders.)
Absenteeism and Turnover
Employees who dislike their jobs tend to be absent more frequently and are also more likely to quit. This is one of the best-documented facts about the negative consequences of low job satisfaction and morale. Evidence also exists that if the cause of discontent is modified, job satisfaction will
3Thomas S. Bateman and Dennis W. Organ, “Job Satisfaction and the Good Soldier: The Relationship between Affect and Employee ‘Citizenship’,” Academy of Management Jour¬nal, December 1983, p. 588.
4Ibid., p. 589.
