Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Employee Performance

Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Employee Performance

         A good organization always relies on high-performing employees within the organization; all the creative ideas and hard work by the employees make most organizations who they are, and in order to improve performance, every employee must go above and beyond what is required within their positions.  These actions are called organizational citizenship behaviors, and they are vital to high-performing organizations, however they present a unique challenge to managers throughout business.  The challenge we are tasked with is to first decide whether these behaviors help or harm organizational development, and second is how to implement these performance measurements.  

Organizational citizenship behavior is defined as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization” (Florea, 2015).  With all kinds of research of Organizational Citizenship Behavior and organizational performance, people are realizing the bottom-line effects that these behaviors can have for organizations.  Researchers have divided Organizational Citizenship Behavior into two parts, Organizational Citizenship Behavior ‘I’ and Organizational Citizenship Behavior ‘O’. OCBI stands for individual directed Organizational Citizenship Behavior, which are used to help further relationships with employees or individual skill development. A good example will be when some employees are behind in their work, other employees are willing to help get them up to speed. These actions employees make to help their colleagues solve problem is just out of caring about them or some kind of private reasons for themselves, so OCBI is more on a personal surface.  These are very surface level interactions, however a manager does not have the time to reward people for each individual instance.  In addition, these actions are not involved in individual compensation therefore some colleagues who are unsatisfied with their job may not help one another.  

On the contrary, OCBO, which stands for organizational directed Organizational Citizenship Behavior, includes all the actions that benefit the organization in general. Examples can be following the organization’s rules even when others are not around, cheerleading for the organization or doing extra work to increase the organization performance. Unlike OCBI, OCBO focuses on a more macro level of an organization’s brand rather than at a personal level.  For example, one of the world’s largest companies, Google, has used many different routes to promote OCBs and encourages a very collaborative environment in the workplace.  The way that Google does this is by allowing their employees to choose the areas of work they are passionate about.  This is vital because employees generally work harder on products they can identify with, but they can also pass on their knowledge to other colleagues who do not have the same experience.  This leads to positive OCBs both individually and organizationally.  Organizationally, Google has been named the best company to work for in 2016, and it is because of the good word of mouth that their employees express in day-to-day life.  Individually, the employees working in field where they are passionate will encourage them to help out others when they need help, and gives employees an opportunity to connect because of their shared interests.  It is important to discuss what exactly makes employees perform these actions, and the next section will discuss the five main components of OCBs.  

                Working environments today emphasizes productivity and quality more than ever. In order to ensure employees contribute their top performance at work, organizations seek ways to create an empowering and positive work environment. Since the 1980s, researchers and organizations become increasingly interested in the concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior, because of their bottom-line impact on the highest performing organizations throughout the world.  Companies that promote organizational citizen behaviors benefit from  having motivated and engaged employees, which can help a company’s development and decrease employee turnover in the long-run

                Organ defined five common types of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors. The first type of organizational citizenship behavior is Altruism, the desire to help others or assist them in reaching their objectives, without expecting something in return. The productivity and quality would increase when employees want to help one another have better achievement at work without expecting merit or rewards for themselves (Florea, 2015). The second type of organizational citizenship behavior is Courtesy, the polite and/or thoughtful behavior aimed at preventing work related problems. The desire to eliminate barriers without instruction also helps companies boost efficiency (Florea, 2015). When employees have courtesy at work, once problems arise at the workplace they are solved much more efficiently. This helps the manager, because by the time a problem has arisen certain employees have already come up with a plan to mitigate that issue. The third type of organizational citizenship behavior is Sportsmanship, the willingness to tolerate difficult, ambiguous, stressful or frustrating situations without complaining or being able to restrain themselves from negative behaviors, when things do not go as planned (Florea, 2015). There are often unexpected challenges or obstacles for employees. Having employees who have the determination provides extra strength for challenging company projects. Instead of complaining or blaming others, employees are more worried about how to get things done, and how they can personally grow from these situations. Such employees are valuable assets to any company. The fourth type of organizational citizenship behavior is conscientiousness, the behavior that is associated with compliance, self-control and discipline, accepting and adhering to rules, regulations and procedures (Florea, 2015). If employees are willing to obey organizational rules and follow disciplines, companies need not worry about misbehaviors and internal disruptions. However, companies need to set reasonable and comprehensive rules before expecting employees to adhere to this key factor. Finally, the fifth type of organizational citizenship behavior is civic virtue, the behavior representing the interest shown by the employee in the organization, how someone supports and promotes the company outside the boundaries of the job description, working hours outside an official capacity (Florea, 2015). The effect of having employees with civic virtue is vital especially to OCBO. Employees are more likely to promote their companies inside and outside of their work if they sincerely love and agree the company’s values.