Strategies for Building Organizational Commitment

Strategies for Building Organizational Commitment

The tendency of One employee for life has now changed and everyone chooses for protean or boundaryless career opportunities. Personal career commitment has become a vital concept in explaining how employees behave in uncertain conditions. Therefore, strategies for the organizations career management now contribute to the development of organizational commitment by the employees and other related practices (Haider et al. 2018).As building organizational commitment among employees have very key influences on the working cycle of any organization, therefore this literature aims to study the subjects of strategies for building organizational commitment and maintaining loyalty and trust among the employees.
Importance of employee commitment
According to Bal, Kooij and De Jong (2013), engaged and committed workforce could lead to many benefits for the organization and also for the career development of employees. Increasing employee engagement and commitment has been of high priority for management from old times but now it has been in its all-time high. The primary reason why employee commitment is of so high priority for the organization is that along with many challenges, demographic challenges make it very hard for organizations to retain old employees and to attract new employees in the organization. The workforce is getting diverse day by day which furthermore increases the importance of commitment for the organization. It is important to note that organizational commitment aims to increase the outcome of the workforce rather than downsizing and wages cutting during a hard time of organization. The organizational commitment will lead to effective work engagement. It will tend to a positive state of mind and vigorous dedication to the job and responsible nature of employees. Whichever organization offers development to its employees get a return on investment as higher engagement and commitment by them. Importance of organizational commitment furthermore increases with long term and the open-ended relationship between workforce and management.
Roll of pay in organizational commitment
According to Jayasingam and Yong (2013), skillful and knowledgeable worker sought to help the organization to establish a competitive edge over its competitors but it is also hard to retain such talent in the organization. According to literature, pay scale and career enhancement opportunities such as skill enhancement and mentoring are important factors in organizational commitment of workers especially of talented employees. If the organization wants to add the individual knowledge of the skilled employees in the knowledge pool of the company then it is essential to make a talented workforce committed toward the development and growth of the organization. Knowledge locked in the mind to talented workers gives them the power to decide what they want to share and what not. Pay scale plays an important role in deciding the strategies for organizational commitment. Talented workers need to feel valued in term of pay to deliberately share their valuable knowledge with others. Knowledge could be separated from knower but it is vital that knowledge remains in organization hence commitment is more important than knowledge. It is becoming hard to get committed employees especially with the new generation which is highly mobile and regularly looking for better opportunities to move on. Now the global market is open and easily accessible by employees hence the turnover rate is high than ever. Pay scale helps to reduce the loss of tangible and intangible knowledge and give a competitive advantage over others.
Strategies for Gaining Commitment
According to Margerum (2001), there are many constraints in getting organizational commitment but there are several strategies which could be applied for the same which are
Legislative Strategy
Legislative Strategy aims to bring different organization near through amendments in power and jurisdictions. The factor here which bonds the participants is power and the most beneficial point here is its simple and strong central control. However, in many cases it is also not useful because power is not able to create a commitment to such an extent which is required in the organizations.
Contractual Strategy
Contractual Strategy aims to bring the two parties (organization-organization or organization employee) under legal constraint to stay in unity for a certain period of time. It generally specifies the objectives and responsibilities expected from both sides. This is a more formalized approach to commitment. It clearly defines the role, relationship and clears the expectations and limitations of both the participants.
Inter-organizational Coordination Strategy
It is a commitment strategy which is mainly associated with the commitment of two different organizations. It requires special structures and regular processes for such type of commitments. It is effective because it establishes an adaptive system of management.
Financial Strategy
Financial Strategy aims to make a commitment through creating a common pool of funds between two organizations. This bounds organizations to allocate resources for common purposes which they normally would not deliver.
Interpersonal Strategy
The organizational commitment could be created by establishing personal relationships with employees. It is also effective for organizations. Interpersonal strategies lead to mutual understanding about the problems and create a different view and interpersonal trusts among employees and management.
The role of engagement
According to Vvan den Heuvel et al. (2017), change in conditions or information in any organization is directly related to the positive psychological changes. Engagement with employees and establishing psychological contacts with them help to adapt them with changes. It also reduces the turnover intentions of employees and makes them stay in the present organization. It is a practical way to establish a connection with the workforce that could create positive affection, behavioral and cognitive responses towards changes in the organization. Engaging employees is a way to show respect to them and their value in the company. It is important that to create organizational commitment, employees should be informed about the ongoing changes in the organization. The information regarding processes in an organization should be passed on to employees at the correct time and inadequate amount so as to satisfy the questions of employees. It has been observed that after job satisfaction and commitment the far most reason to switch the job is changes in the organization. From a practical point of view, unwanted turnover costs a lot to the organization in term of acquiring a new replacement for the previous role. According to the author, factors such as commitment to change and will to tackle the uncertainty caused by changes decides for what period of time does employee would stay in a particular organization. It is interesting to note that there is no strong evidence for the relation between the trust and ability to change but a high level of engagement defiantly leads to positive affection among the employees.
Difference between Organizational commitment and work engagement
According to Vecina et al. (2013), organizational commitment and work engagement are the two different concepts but to some extent are interconnected to each other. Work engagement is related to the well-being but it does not reflect the organizational commitment. On the other hand organizational commitment is related to the intention to remain in the organization but it does not guaranty the psychological well-being of the employees. Thus what makes employees stay in an organization is decided by their organizational commitment and what make them feel happy are work engagement and the work performed by them. It is important that employees feel connected with their work so as to remain energetic throughout their work. The role of employees should not make them feel stressful rather they should feel it as challenging and interesting. They should be able to enjoy their work. If employees will feel good and fulfilled in themselves then they will eventually be committed towards the organization. At a psychological level, they will be contributing to their full potential. It is an ethical way to create organizational commitment among the workforce and it also lasts for the long term.
Drivers of workforce commitment
According to Stum (1999), there are mainly six factors which decide the commitment of the workforce of an organization. The six drivers of commitment are an attachment to the employer, readiness to change job, priorities on the job, devotion to employer goals, efforts on the job and motto. Unlike old times when employees used to be highly connected with the employer, now employees and employers prefer to keep some distance and this is the reason for low workforce commitment especially in case of many big organizations. Now opportunities available to talented employees is more than ever hence they suddenly grab the better opportunity available to them. Similarly, now personal life and career growth are more important than the firms objectives and goal which leads to more turnover rate of employees. Efforts by the employee are also much more than old times hence they expect better for themselves also.
It could be concluded that to have organizational commitment strategies should more focus on work/life balance, benefits and compensation, organizational culture, leadership and direction, proper management of changes and adequate training and development of employees. With proper steps for engagement of stakeholders and through implementing strategies according to above-mentioned factors management could drastically improve the organizational commitment of the employees throughout their complete career.

References
Bal, P.M., Kooij, D.T. and De Jong, S.B., 2013. How do developmental and accommodative HRM enhance employee engagement and commitment The role of psychological contract and SOC strategies.Journal of Management Studies,50(4), pp.545-572.
Jayasingam, S. and Yong, J.R., 2013. Affective commitment among knowledge workers The role of pay satisfaction and organization career management.The International Journal of Human Resource Management,24(20), pp.3903-3920.
Haider, S., Jabeen, S. and Ahmad, J., 2018. Moderated mediation between work life balance and employee job performance The role of psychological wellbeing and satisfaction with coworkers. Revista de Psicologa del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 34(1), pp.29-37.
Margerum, R.D., 2001. Organizational commitment to integrated and collaborative management Matching strategies to constraints.Environmental Management,28(4), pp.421-431.
Stum, D.L., 1999. Workforce commitment Strategies for the new work order.Strategy amp Leadership,27(1), pp.4-7.
Vecina, M.L., Chacn, F., Marzana, D. and Marta, E., 2013. Volunteer engagement and organizational commitment in nonprofit organizations What makes volunteers remain within organizations and feel happy.Journal of Community Psychology,41(3), pp.291-302.
Vvan den Heuvel, S., Freese, C., Schalk, R. and van Assen, M., 2017. How change information influences attitudes toward change and turnover intention the role of engagement, psychological contract fulfillment, and trust.Leadership amp Organization Development Journal,38(3), pp.398-418.