Productive and counterproductive behavior

Counterproductive behaviors are those behaviors that work towards hindering the organization’s success. These behaviors may be extreme or mild, constant or acute. Therefore, the manager should always be keen on noticing such behaviors as early as possible and respond to them. The manager should not encourage an employee expressing counterproductive behavior since it may affect the firm’s reputation and that of the employee. Some of the examples of counterproductive behaviors in an organization are, backstabbing, biasness, shouting, spreading rumors, complaining, causing conflicts and snubbing other employees. On the other hand, productive behaviors are the behaviors that enhance productivity. This is the employee behavior that aims in enhancing productivity and ensuring the organization’s success. This behavior ensures the satisfaction of the employee and organization’s objectives. Therefore, the employees that express the productive behavior influence the organization positively and those who portray counterproductive behavior influence the organization negatively (Barrick & Ryan, 2003).

The job performance is directly linked to the productive and the counterproductive behaviors. Therefore, gauging the relationships between the productive and the counterproductive behaviors enables increased job performance in the workplace. Productive behaviors always result to great relations in the job performance. The practice of productive behavior by most employees motivates the other employees not practicing the same since they witness productivity from their colleagues. Therefore, this encourages productivity through out the workplace. This productive behavior builds a motivated and great workforce that in turn results to high job performance. Therefore, when all the employees focus on reaching their objectives and the organization’s objectives, the job productivity will be increased. When these employees comply with the ethical requirements of the organization, the overall job performance will increase and the counterproductive behaviors will reduce.

Counterproductive behaviors influence the organization negatively. However, some of the counterproductive behaviors may have a positive impact on the overall job performance. Surveys show that short breaks after long tedious works in the workplace may result to a high job performance. In addition, when the employees feel free and comfortable in the workplace, they feel free to voice their opinions, share new ideas and develop good relationships with their colleagues. When employees spend time with each other outside work, they resume work when they are more motivated, focused and energetic than before. However constant counterproductive behavior in the organization result to a negative job performance. The counterproductive behaviors affect organizations greatly. Behaviors such as theft, damage, inefficient job performance, absenteeism and employee turn over makes an organization to suffer losses (Fox, & Spector, 2005).

The companies suffer from economic loss in the event of theft or violence. In the event of inefficient job performance, they loose possible sales reducing their revenues. This is because these companies do not offer the customers with quality services. When the employees are constantly absent from work, the organization suffers from low work output. In addition, the organizations objectives are not met and so are the deadlines. Absenteeism may also affect employee turn over. The management may refer to the employee turn over as an optimal one or a dysfunctional one. This will depend on the employee performance and employee values in the work place. In addition, continuous absenteeism affects the efficiency and unity among the employee working groups. These factors will affect the job performance in the organization and in turn, the overall performance of the organization. However, when the counterproductive factors are practiced to the minimum, they may lead to positive job performance (Fox & Spector, 2005).

The productive and counterproductive behaviors aid in the determination of the organization’s productivity and employee job satisfaction. Employee behaviors in the organization can be either productive or counterproductive. Therefore, it is important for an organization to increase the productive behaviors and decrease its counterproductive behaviors. Many strategies can be employed to increase these behaviors while reducing the counterproductive behaviors. To ensure this, the organization should employ the strategy of prevention and promotion. Preventing counterproductive behavior and promoting productive behavior should be ensured by an organization. The prevention can be achieved by methods such as employee appraisal. This will enable the manager to determine areas of expertise for different employees in order to increase the organization’s productivity.

Another strategy that can be employed is the use of physical action. The management can assess the methods employed in the functioning of the company to determine if they are counterproductive. If counterproductive methods are identified, they can be changed in order to increase the productive behaviors in the organization. The organization can also add cameras in its workplace in order to monitor the employees with ease. They can also carry out drug screening programs. This will help in increasing the productive behavior and reducing the counterproductive behaviors in the organization. It will also increase the company’s profitability and success since the employees will be more focused on working towards achieving the organization’s objectives. In the end, the overall performance of the organization will increase (Ṿardi & Weitz, 2004).

References

Barrick, M. R., & Ryan, A. M. (2003). Personality and work: Reconsidering the role of personality in organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Fox, S., & Spector, P. E. (2005). Counterproductive work behavior: Investigations of actors and targets. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Ṿardi, Y., & Weitz, E. (2004). Misbehavior in organizations: Theory, research, and management. Mahwah, N.J: L. Erlbaum.