It is probably safe to say that negative workplace events are inevitable. Sooner or later, every employee will experience them. The problem is that after experiencing such events, many employees engage in withdrawal behavior (e.g., turnover, absenteeism, lateness) or lash out via counter-productive work behavior. However, this is not true for all employees. In fact, some employees respond to unpleasant events in ways that benefit the organization. So who are these employees?
THE RESEARCH STUDY
In a recent study, researchers (Burton et al., 2010) explored what is called job embeddedness, which refers to the extent to which employees feel attached or linked to their organization or its members. For example, these employees may think they fit in well or believe that leaving would entail great personal sacrifice.
The authors collected survey data from 623 employees working for a large financial institution. Their findings suggest that employees who are highly embedded within their organization react quite differently to shocks than those who are not. To be clear, shocks refer to any event that encourages employees to think about leaving the organization. They can be either positive shocks (e.g., a significant other receiving a promotion that requires relocation) or negative shocks, such as unfair treatment or missing out on a promotion. However, the researchers focused only on negative shocks.
Instead of engaging in the typical responses to shocks (e.g., withdrawal or counter-productive work behavior), highly embedded employees deal with shocks by maintaining their performance on the job and engaging in more organizational citizenship behavior, which means going the extra mile. In other words, job embeddedness serves are a shield against negative shocks.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
These findings clearly demonstrate the importance of enhancing employees’ job embeddedness. Building a strong link between employees and their organization is partly up to the employees. Still, it can certainly be facilitated when organizations provide increased employee support, measure and monitor job embeddedness, promote fair personnel practices, and stamp out organizational politics.
Burton, J.P., Holtom, B.C., Sablynski, C.J., Mitchell, T.R., & Lee, T.W. (2010). The buffering effects of job embeddedness on negative shocks. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76(1), 42-51.
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