Citizenship Behavior For Better Organizational Performance

Written by: Jerin Jose

Adam is the new HR Manager at ITech. During the process of his onboarding, his supervisor entrusts him with a special task of managing the employee attrition in the organization. While studying the attrition data of the organization, Adam was surprised to know that the attrition levels of ITech were very high as compared to the industry standards, even though the organization was one of the best paymasters. In addition it also providing multiple fringe benefits to its employees. This led to multiple questions in his mind.

Joe was the first to join ITech after Adam joined as the HR Manager. Adam was curious and anxious at the same time due to the underlying problem of attrition. Anu was a senior scientist and had been there for more than 5 years in the organization. Adam asked Anu to mentor Joe and assured her of all the support from his side. One of the major characteristics Adam observed with Anu was that she was not ready to go that extra mile for the organization. She trained Joe only on the aspects that were absolutely necessary. This made Adam wanting to study the work behavior of ITech’s employees.

The common phenomenon he observed was that most employees did not have any commitment towards the organization and the majority of the high-performing employees were looking for job openings in other companies. Even with the best salary structure in the industry and opportunities to grow, the question ‘why were employees thinking about shifting the job’ constantly haunted Adam.

A month after Joe’s joining the organization, when Adam learnt about his progress, he was disappointed. Anu, his mentor, stuck to the books resulting in a formal mentor-mentee relationship. Adam made reached a conclusion that most employees did not have a commitment to the organization and were not ready to take the ownership of their work. He understood that the employees lacked citizenship towards the organization.

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The success of organizations is highly dependent on its employees, who are ready to go that extra mile towards the attainment of the organizational objectives. Leaders play a key role in developing such committed employees. Organizational Citizenship Behavior is that extra role each employee performs in an organization that is not recognized explicitly (Podsakoff and Mackenzie, 1994). Citizenship behavior is an integral dimension for the effective functioning of an organization, which aims to provide assistance and help to the organization, outside the defined scope of work (Organ, 1988). Organizational Citizenship is the result of an employee’s altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, and civic virtue.

• Employee Altruism – Employee altruism is the cooperative and supportive behavior between the employees that ultimately benefits the organization. Employee altruism is a social support that each employee extends to his/her colleagues on a personal basis. The evolutionary theory speaks of altruism as a character where one makes sacrifices for the benefit of others. From an organizational standpoint, altruism is an employee characteristic, extending a helping hand to his colleagues even though he has no obligation to do so.
• Courtesy – Courtesy is considered as politeness and consideration in one’s behavior towards others. At workplace, courtesy prevents undesirable situations, thus leading to a positive organizational environment. Through courtesy, one expresses his affection, respect, and regard for others.
• Conscientiousness – Conscientiousness is the quality of an employee to do his work carefully, diligently, and sincerely. Conscientiousness infers an employee’s willingness to do extra work, work for long days without pressure, and abide by the rules and regulations of the organization even if no one is watching.
• Sportsmanship – Sportsmanship is the behavior expressed by the employees where they consider the organizational interest above self-interest.
• Civic Virtue – Civic virtue is a trait expressed by the employees, motivating them to responsibly participate and involve in the affairs of the organization. Civic virtue is the result of what the organization provides to the employees. Unfair treatment from the employer’s side will reduce the civic virtue of the employees.

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Anu was very excited as she and her friend were going on a weekend trip. The excitement only lasted until her manager assigned her some work and demanded it to be completed before Monday morning. Her manager didn’t explicitly tell to work on the weekend, but told her to complete the assignment by Monday morning. This led Anu to think that the organization was only focused on tasks and never bothered about the welfare of its employees, which eventually led to her detachment.

“The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things.” – Peter Drucker