Counterproductive Behaviors in Organizations

Counterproductive Behaviors in Organizations

Most employees work hard to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization employing them. Under normal circumstances, employees perform their duties to the best of their abilities. They may even go beyond the call of duty to develop innovative and creative ideas to help the firm achieve its objectives. Employees engage in such behaviors because organizations go to great lengths to recruit workers that can help it achieve its goals. As a result, firms develop appropriate criteria and systems that help them get such workers. However, some workers participate in counterproductive behaviors that are contrary to the aspirations of the organizations.

Counterproductive behavior in organizations refers to the practices that are contrary to the expectation of their employers. The common types of self-defeating behaviors are absenteeism, sexual harassment, employee theft, substance abuse, violence, ineffective job performance, accidents, and staff turnover, among many others. Some individuals also have difficult personalities that make it problematic to develop cohesive teams. Some of the practices are prevalent, while others are less common. However, all counterproductive behaviors are destructive and costly to organizations. It is essential to understand these practices to learn about the causes and consequences. After that, an organization explores the methods that a firm can use to eliminate such behaviors at all levels.

Counterproductive behaviors are behavior that runs contrary to the goals of an organization. For example, one of the primary purposes of private institutions is to make profits, although it may have many other goals and objectives. For example, it may seek to have high levels of customer service, a reputation of being socially responsible, and creating a harmonious working environment for its workers. If one of its workers behaves in a manner that makes it difficult for the firm to achieve one of its objectives, then that individual becomes counterproductive. Such persons do not have the interest of the firm at heart and may hurt the organization.

Employees engage in counterproductive behavior for various reasons. For example, a retail worker who steals merchandise from a shop may do so with the sole purpose of personal gain. It is also possible for workers to engage in the behavior without adequate knowledge. For example, a poorly trained worker may plan to work well for the firm but lacks the knowledge to assist the institution in achieving its objectives.

Ineffective Job Performance

Ineffective job performance is one of the challenges that organizations face daily. Although firms develop systems to recruit the best workers, at times, they fail to employ top performers. Most people go to work each day to do their jobs well for several reasons. They plan to achieve these objectives for various reasons. Some of them are positive, tangible outcomes such as cash bonuses, merit increases, promotional opportunities, among others. Intangible reward includes admiration from others, getting praise from colleagues, and a meaningful sense of personal accomplishment. Despite all the logical reasons to perform well, some people do not achieve the desired results. Ineffective performance is a challenge to organizations for several reasons. First, it is difficult for a firm to recognize it immediately. Once detected, it is always challenging to diagnose the causes. Finally, organizations struggle to respond and prevent the problem.

Detection of ineffective performance

In ideal situations, organizations develop performance measurement systems. They also establish evaluation processes. In such circumstances, a regular performance appraisal can detect weak performances. Most firms recognize inefficient performance through the collection of performance-related data, such as personal and production data, subjective evaluations, and electronic performance monitoring. Personal data includes capturing items such as sick days, absences, safety violations, and disciplinary actions. Some of these issues can be measures of counterproductive behaviors. An analysis of the problems can direct the management to the real problems that are facing the employee. For example, absenteeism or lateness can be a sign of substance abuse or other problems that can have negative impacts on their performance.

Production data provide a firm with factual information on outcomes with job performance. One of the most common forms of production data is sales commission. In many settings, organizations use production indexes to gauge the production of workers. Production data is a critical tool in detecting ineffective job performance. The material provides the firm with information that it is difficult for workers to dispute. Such data are also easy and cheap to get because firms collect them for other purposes.

However, production data has several drawbacks as a measure of ineffective performance. In most cases, production data provide a simplistic view of the job performance of the workers. For example, a salesperson can witness a reduction in their sales commission in a specific year. However, numerical data provide little information about the source of performance challenges. As a result, supervisors may develop callous attitudes towards workers who do not achieve their targets.

The most common measure of employee performance is the subjective appraisal. The immediate supervisors perform most assessments either through an annual or semiannual metrics as a firm may consider appropriate. In considering individual assessment, an organization finds the behavior of a worker. It also discusses the effectiveness of an employee. Although it is essential to develop a system that appraises the behavior of a worker, it is a complex process that most firms do not manage to achieve. Therefore, most of them rely on performance appraisals to determine the behavior and attitude of its workers. However, they are general and less effective.

As a method of detecting effective performance, subjective appraisals have numerous advantages in comparison to personal and production data. Compared to production data, a manager’s thoughtful consideration of an employee’s performance may provide greater insight into the main challenges that cause ineffective employee performance. At the same time, regular appraisals transmitted to workers regularly makes it easier for workers to learn their weaknesses and prevent inefficient production before it occurs.

Despite their numerous advantages, subjective appraisals are of limited use in detecting ineffective performance. Most organizations utilize performance appraisal instruments that assess excellent performance only and fail the reasons for poor performances. At the same time, most firms are not using technological advances that have emerged since the advent of computers. Therefore, performance appraisal poorly is done and, in some cases, does not take place at all.

The final method of detecting counterproductive behavior is the use of electronic performance monitoring. It is common today to monitor employees serving in the customer service call centers as they interact with customers. Monitoring workers in this manner is competent when they know in advance that their supervisors will be checking them.

The second form of counterproductive behavior is absenteeism. The leading causes of absenteeism are lack of commitment to the ideals of the firm or dissatisfaction with their jobs. In some cases, employees are absent from work for reasons that are acceptable to the organization and its management. Absenteeism for reasons that are not acceptable to the administration are the ones that emerge as counterproductive behavior because they hurt the operations of a firm. As a result, employers’ concerns on absenteeism are because of the loss of company time that is difficult to recover. In some cases, the firm can pay the workers their regular income even when they are absent from their work stations.

Some of the causes of absenteeism in an organization is an absence culture.

Employee turnover

Like absenteeism, staff turnover is a consequence of a lack of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. High rates of turnover in an organization are counterproductive because they increase the costs of production. It is expensive to recruit and train new workers consistently. At the same time, high staff turnover is a reputation hazard for an organization making it harder to attract new workers. Turnover is also dysfunctional if an organization allows some of its good employees to leave. In some cases, firms need to enable their good performing workers to exit because the cost of maintaining vast numbers of highly paid workers may be prohibitive. However, it is essential to control such departures so that it does not create a wrong impression in society that a particular organization cannot retain its best workers.

Staff turnover can also be avoidable or unavoidable. Turnover is avoidable if an organization can take steps to retain the workers. It is a subjective process that involves weighing the consequences of losing workers against the benefits of maintaining them. Unavoidable turnover refers to circumstances where the organizations have no power to prevent employees from leaving. For example, it may be necessary to leave an organization to move with a spouse to a new region. In some cases, the position may be redundant, making it essential for an organization to let the individual exit. In other cases, an employee may be withdrawing from the labor market, making their departure necessary. Therefore, staff turnover is a significant challenge for organizations and deserves the attention of critical decision-makers to avoid unnecessary disruptions.

Accidents

Accidents are common occurrences in specific industries. For example, people working in the mining and agricultural sectors are prone to accidents than their counterparts in sales and customer service departments. Therefore, safety is an essential consideration for most institutions, and failure to plan for them may be counterproductive. One of the approaches that most institutions use to ensure the safety of its workers and customers is to construct business premises that are safe for all stakeholders. A second approach is behavior modification. The practice encourages workers to use safe work practices and discourage them from participating in unsafe ones. The actions of governments that enact legislation to guarantee the safety of the workers. For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Act provide the legal regime to ensure safe working environments.

Employee theft is also another form of counterproductive behavior that is not common in the workplace. Employee theft may involve workers stealing office supplies to government workers theft of classified documents. One of the leading causes of employee theft is the individual behavior of a worker that most organizations solve by dismissing them. In other cases, employee theft s caused by organizational conditions that frustrate them. In most cases, the consequences of employee theft are felt outside the organization because they pass the costs to consumers. Therefore, the result of employee theft is counterproductive as it makes the values of the goods more costly.

Workplace violence and harassment is another form of counterproductive behavior that is not prevalent in organizations. Most violent acts in organizations are between workers attacking their colleagues. In some cases, customers may hurt employees. The organizational environment determines whether workers and customers will be violent towards each other. Organizations that mistreat their workers may create an extreme situation. However, firms that treat every person somewhat are less likely to experience these problems.

Substance abuse is also another form of counterproductive behavior in organizations. Users of illegal drugs and alcohol are severe problems for institutions because such individuals will always be absent from their offices. Substance abuse is also related to other social challenges, such as traffic offices, violent crimes, and domestic violence. These factors are a risk to the reputation of an organization. It also causes poor performances, absenteeism, and more anti- organizational behavior.

Cyberloafing

Counterproductive behaviors re a major challenge that firms have to deal with regularly. Although businesses invest significant resources in recruiting the best individuals to help it achieve its goals and objectives, they may fail to recognize some of their weaknesses during the recruitment process. As a result, it is likely to employ ineffective performers, petty thieves, substance-abusing individuals, violent individuals, among other shortcomings. All forms of counterproductive behavior have causes and early warning systems that employers can use to recognize the problems in advance. After that, the firm can develop a mechanism to prevent its occurrence, and when it occurs without the knowledge of the firm, it must have policies to address such issues. Thus, although counterproductive behaviors are a threat to an organization, a consistent improvement in policies and procedures can limit the damages.