Speech delivered by Dr (Cdr) NK
Natarajan at the National Conclave of
National HRD Network on 08 Oct
2011
Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is indeed a privilege to be
associated with NHRD and I am really grateful for giving me this opportunity to
share some of my experiences as a recruiter and also as a research scholar. This
afternoon, I will be talking to you on the ‘Relevance of Values in Talent
Acquisition and Retention’. To give you a brief background on how I ventured
into exploring this field; I was quite perplexed with myself when the thought
of quitting the armed forces came into my mind way back in 2002 when I was
actually riding the wave with medals and commendations coming my way at regular
intervals. I was surely doing well yet the turnover intention was getting
bolder by the day. I did not know why? Everything seemed alright except that
there was some strange feeling that was pulling me away from the organization
which literally nurtured me into adulthood as I was only 18 when I first wore
the uniform. Having successfully completed the training on personnel selection
at Defence Institute of Psychological Research, New Delhi, I was posted as a
recruitment psychologist at Selection Centre Central, Bhopal and this was a fertile
ground for research work. I took that opportunity to understand as to ‘what
propel people to leave their organization?’ After 3½ years of dedicated work, I
found some answers to my own perplexity and that is what I intend to share with
you today.
What propels the turnover intention has
been a subject of study for several decades. Yet there is no conclusive
evidence which can be theorized and made part of the body of knowledge.
However, it is a challenge being faced by every organization today. While the
literature is full of theories of Maslow, Herzberg and others, some of the
recent studies have penetrated deep into what these theoreticians have
proclaimed. And one new dimension that has generated a lot of curiosity is the
study of ‘Values – Both Personal and Organizational’. Traditionally, recruiters
have focused on P-J fit or person-job fit which can be defined as individual
having the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) to perform the job
where as the focus should be on overall P-O fit or Person-Organization fit
which can be broadly defined as congruence of the personal values of the
employee with the values of the organization. I have come across several HRs
who very passionately argue that what matters are results and hence what
concern them is P-J fit and that brings me to the point of explaining what are
values and why they are important.
Understanding
values require us to understand their relationship to needs. Animals act on
instinct, preprogrammed how to respond by nature; whereas people act on free
will, choosing for themselves on how to respond. Our choices are based on
values, which are beliefs about what is important in life. A primary function
of values is to meet needs. According to Abraham Maslow, people have
physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization needs. Maslow
maintains that once people’s basic needs are met, they focus on their higher
order needs of esteem and self-actualization. Attempting to meet needs brings
us face-to-face with the dilemma of choice. This dilemma places us between two
sets of forces: those pulling towards safety and those pushing towards growth
and development. How people resolve this dilemma depends on their values.
Values shape people’s preferred ways of satisfying their needs and, whether
they’re aware of it or not, every action is guided by one or more values.
Milton Rokeach said, “Values are the cognitive representations and
transformations of needs, and man is the only animal capable of such
representations and transformations”. Without the capacity to formulate and act
on values, life on the human level would not exist. Thus, it is values which
propel people to stay or quit an organization. Values are psychological
constructs. They are internal to a person. Organizations as such don’t have
values but, because they are composed of human beings, their cultures are
shaped by values. The values of persons shape organizational behavior and the
direction taken by organizations. These values must be largely shared in order
for an organization to forge a direction leading to success. Without a
reasonably high degree of shared values, organizations and the people in them will
flounder and fail.
Now let us understand
what is Organizational Commitment
Meyer and Allen
identified three types of commitment; affective commitment, continuance
commitment, and normative commitment. Affective
commitment is defined as the emotional attachment,
identification, and involvement that an employee has with his organization and its
goals.
On the other hand,
normative commitment is a “feeling of obligation”. It is argued that normative
commitment is only natural due to the way we are raised in society. Normative
commitment can be explained by other commitments such as marriage, family,
religion, etc. Therefore, when it comes to one’s commitment to their place of
employment they do feel that they have a moral obligation to the organization.
Continuance commitment is the
willingness to remain in an organization because of the investment that the
employee has which are “nontransferable”. For example retirement benefits,
relationship with other employees etc.
All the three
types of commitment are a psychological state “that either characterizes the
employee’s relationship with the organization or has the implication to predict
whether the employee will continue with the organization”. Generally, research
shows that those employees with a strong affective commitment will remain with
an organization because they want to, those with a strong continuance
commitment remain because they have to, and those with a normative commitment
remain because they feel that they have to. A committed employee is one who
“stays with an organization, attends work regularly, puts in a full day and
more, protects corporate assets, and believes in the organizational goals”. Such
employees positively contribute to the organization because of their commitment
to the organization.
Affective and
normative commitment have been found to be highly and positively correlated,
and both have been shown to be predictors of positive organizational behavior. Whereas,
continuance commitment, on the other hand, has been found to be unrelated to
affective commitment and negatively related to positive organizational
behaviors. The only similarity between the three components of organizational
commitment appears to be related to lower turnover intention, or ‘withdrawal
cognitions’. Thus, one could say that an employee not willing to maintain
organizational citizenship is not committed at all to the organization.
While research has identified a variety
of outcomes of commitment the antecedents of commitment seem to be much more
varied and inconsistent. However, recent studies point towards personal and organizational
values as a major antecedent of commitment. This brings us to the point to
understand the relationship between values and organizational commitment.
It was Prof Joan Finegan, from the
University of Western Ontario who in the year 2000, using the McDonald &
Gandz value taxonomy, found that perceived organizational values – the values
that the employee believe the organization holds – did to some extent predict
employees’ levels of commitment. However, different value types predicted
different commitment components. More recently, some of the Indian scholars
went on to validate the findings of the western researchers did confirm that different
clusters of values predict different facets of organizational commitment.
However, a more composite research done
by me along with Prof Dinesh Nagar, a well known psychologist brought out some
very significant results which I shall summarize.
Using a 24 items value taxonomy of
McDonald & Gandz we asked 220 subjects to first indicate as to how
important are these values to them personally on a 7 point Likert scale.
Thereafter, we asked them to rate the same scale and indicate as to how they
perceive these values being promoted in their organization. Finally, they were
asked to rate each statement of the 18 item commitment scale developed by
Mayer, Allen and Smith which measures all the three components of commitment
namely Affective, Normative and Continuance commitments.
Using a principal component factor
analysis, the 24 items of the value scale were reduced to 8 factors for better
statistical analysis. The major results of the studies are as shown on the
slide:-
·
Both personal and organizational values
predict commitment. However, perceived organizational values are more potent
predictors of commitment.
·
- Employees who value fairness, openness, logic and moral integrity are likely to be more effectively committed to the organization.
- Employees who perceive the organization to be fair, open, logical and promote moral integrity will feel the moral obligation to be part of such organizations.
·
It may therefore be said that if there
is congruence between personal and perceived organizational values of fairness,
openness, logic and moral integrity the employee will be highly committed
affectively and normatively which will lead to effective work place behavior.
·
Employees who perceive their organization
to be cautious, experimenting and demanding blind obedience will display
continuance commitment and would leave the organization at the first possible
instance.
These findings answered my question as
to why I wanted to leave the armed forces. Going back to 2002, my then
Commanding Officer projected his favorite boy with a citation quoting a life
saving act which was actually performed by me. I protested but was given a shut
up call and asked to fall in line. I officially represented but till date there
has been no reply. Somewhere deep down in my memory the feelings of injustice
remained. I was later offered the most coveted staff course which I refused. I
continued with the organization as I was waiting for my pension (continuance
commitment) and when I earned it I quit but was not released. I finally
struggled my way out and retired.
I wonder had this been a private sector
where the exit barrier is not so high and there are no pensions, I would have
perhaps jumped the fence much earlier. The lessons that I intend to transfer
through this session are:-
·
Focus on P-O fit.
·
Hire people who value openness,
fairness, logic and have strong moral integrity. Such people will stay
committed to the organization.
·
These people will also shape an
organizational culture where these values will be promoted. Thus, there will be
congruence between the personal and perceived organizational values.
·
Do a reality check once in a while, to
see what the employees believe are the values that your organization promotes.
·
If need be, align your HR processes to
make sure that the values of openness, fairness, logic and moral integrity are perceived
to be promoted in your organization.
I am not at all
discounting the importance of P-J fit or Person-Job fit. All that I am advocating
is to go beyond to see if there is an overall P-O fit in terms of shared
values, if you want the employee to stay and deliver for a long time. A word of
caution is that assessment of P-O fit through employment interview is not so
easy and requires special skills. This can be the subject of my discourse some
time else.
Since the instruments
that we used in our research were developed in the West, the validity of the
same in the Indian context was always a question mark. Hence, post research we
collected data of nearly 1500 subjects spanning across the nation and revalidated
these findings. We have also come out
with a scale that is more representative of the structure of Human Values in
the Indian context.
Thank you so much for
this opportunity Ladies and Gentlemen!!!
