Exchanging ideas to create the well-being advantage

Today I’d like to welcome back Gordon Tinline who’s a Director at my University spin off company Robertson Cooper and will be sharing his views on how to avoid becoming resentful at work due to the effects of the recession.  I hope you enjoy his post and please feel free to leave any comments. Thanks for coming back Gordon!

Gordon Tinline, Director, Robertson Cooper

Cary has written recently about the need to stay focused on the positive and remain optimistic through a recession, and I agree that this is very important.  Clearly, if you’ve lost your job and feel very uncertain about your future prospects this is extremely difficult to do.  However, in some cases it may be almost as difficult to stay positive when there is little or no immediate threat to your employment or security.  One reason for this is the resentment that can develop when individuals feel they have little choice other than remaining with their current employer as, like homeowners flirting with negative equity at this difficult time, they perceive that it’s just too risky to move.  Initial mildly negative feelings towards an employer can quite quickly build into an unhealthy resentment that affects both the well-being and performance of the employee. This is often accompanied by a heightened sense of feeling tied to the organisation, combined with reduced control over one’s career trajectory.

 A number of years ago psychologists Meyer and Allen identified three forms of organisational commitment: affective commitment – the emotional tie you have to your organisation; normative commitment – the values you feel you share with your employers; and continuance commitment – a commitment to staying because the costs of leaving are too high.  As an employer, if you rely on continuance commitment you may be settling for your people turning up for work regardless of whether they feel a real connection with your business and those who work in it.  This is a certain recipe for reduced levels of discretionary effort and employee engagement.  The risk in these times is that continuance commitment begins to feel stronger than the affective or normative types of commitment. Employees will only ever resent a situation where they feel that they are staying with their employer because they have to, rather than because they want to…. even if they had no intention of leaving prior to the recession!  This is also bad news for the psychological contract because if employers sense that their staff resent them, despite the fact they are working hard to keep the workforce happy and employed, resentment can quickly become a two-way affair.

So how do we avoid this possible unfortunate outcome?  As an employer it is surely about making extra efforts to signal that you truly value your people – try revisiting your value statements and reviewing prevailing leadership behaviours to ensure they are aligned and authentic.  It is not about telling employees that they should be grateful that they still have a job!  That would further damage the way staff morale and strengthen a view that the espoused values, like respect and valuing people, are empty and meaningless.  As an employee, it is worth reminding oneself about the positive aspects of working for your employer – including why your job is important to you.  You must try to avoid the negative spiral of thought that stems from feeling you have no choices and as a result risk starting to feel like a victim, rather than someone who still has control over most of aspects their own life.  Most important, don’t get resentful – knuckle down to improve things in your current role or if, when you think about it, you really do need to leave the organisation then be brave and do so.