PS392 Unit 3 Employee Attitudes Paper Example

Fifty-Two Surveys From the Sort Line: A PS392 Unit 3 Employee Attitudes Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS392: Attitudes and Motivation in the Workplace

Unit 3 Employee Attitudes Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the recycling plant, the survey and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

Why We Asked

Our Tucson plant had been losing sorters faster than we could train them, and the only data we had came from exit interviews, which arrive too late to help. In March I ran a short anonymous survey of all sixty sorters on both shifts, in English and Spanish, on the clock in the first half hour of each shift. Fifty-two people completed it.

The survey asked about five facets of satisfaction (the work itself, pay, supervision, coworkers and physical conditions) on a five-point scale, plus four items on emotional attachment to the company and one question: "Do you expect to still work at this plant six months from now?"

What the Crew Said

Coworkers drew the highest rating, an average of 4.0. Supervision averaged 3.7 on the day shift and 2.6 on swing. The work itself came in at 2.9. Pay averaged 2.1, and physical conditions, meaning heat, noise and dust, were lowest at 1.8. Nineteen of the fifty-two said they were unlikely or very unlikely to be at the plant in six months. Written comments repeated three themes: the building is too hot, warehouses nearby pay about two dollars an hour more, and swing shift "gets whatever day shift doesn't want."

The crew was not unhappy with one another; they were unhappy with what the company controlled.

Does Satisfaction Matter for Performance?

The plant manager's first question was whether any of this affects the bales. Judge et al. (2001) revisited the long debate over that question with a review of 312 samples covering more than 54,000 workers. They estimated the correlation between overall satisfaction and job performance at about .30, larger than the near-zero figure many managers learned in school. They were careful about direction: satisfaction may raise performance, good performance may raise satisfaction, or both may come from something else, such as a well-run team.

A correlation of .30 means satisfaction is one meaningful influence among several. On a sort line, where a missed piece of film can get a whole bale rejected, even a modest effect on attention and care is worth having. Our quality data offered a hint. Day shift, which rated supervision a full point higher, had about a third fewer rejected fiber bales over the same quarter, although the two shifts also differ in volume and in the material that arrives.

What Predicts Leaving

Turnover is the cost we see most clearly. Griffeth et al. (2000) updated a large meta-analysis of what precedes people leaving a job. The closest predictors were the ones nearest the act itself: saying one intends to quit and actively looking for other work. Overall satisfaction and attachment to the organization predicted leaving more modestly, and pay showed a smaller effect than many managers assume, though how pay relates to performance mattered for whether good performers stayed.

That ordering explains why our single "six months from now" question may be the most useful item on the survey. It sits close to the decision. Three months after the survey, eight of the nineteen sorters who doubted they would stay had left, compared with three of the other thirty-three.

Which Kind of Commitment

Meyer et al. (2002) distinguished three reasons people stay with an employer: because they want to, a bond the researchers call affective commitment; because leaving would cost them too much; and because they feel they ought to. In their meta-analysis, the first kind showed the strongest ties to staying, to showing up and to doing good work. Staying because leaving is too costly did little for performance or attendance and in some studies went with worse outcomes.

Our attachment items measured the first kind, and the average was 2.7. Several sorters wrote that they stay because the plant is on a bus line or because nobody else would hire them without experience. That is the costly-to-leave kind, and Meyer and colleagues' results suggest it keeps people on the payroll without making them want to be there. When the nearby warehouse added a bus stop last fall, two of those sorters left within a month.

Reading the Shift Gap

The supervision difference between shifts deserved its own look. Day shift has had the same lead for a year, and she rotates stations, posts the mill reports and explains rejected bales. Swing shift has had three leads in eighteen months. Swing sorters also wrote that they are assigned to pre-sort more often and learn about schedule changes last. Nothing in the swing shift's pay or building differs from days, so the gap in supervision ratings and in quit intentions points to something we can change without a capital budget. I checked whether the shift difference reflected different people: swing sorters had similar tenure and a similar mix of ages, so composition does not explain it.

Limits of the Survey

The survey has real weaknesses. Fifty-two responses split across two shifts make every subgroup small. People who had already decided to leave may have skipped it. A single item on intentions is not a validated scale, and satisfaction facets were measured with one item each. The survey also captures one month, March, before the summer heat that drives the worst conditions ratings. I plan to repeat it in August and again next March so we can see whether the numbers move with the seasons or with our changes.

What We Will Do

The results pointed to four actions.

First, conditions. Physical conditions were rated lowest and were mentioned in more comments than anything else. Maintenance is pricing two additional evaporative cooling units for the pre-sort area and longer, more frequent water breaks from June through September.

Second, pay. A market check showed our sorter rate below every warehouse within ten miles. I have asked for a review before the next budget. Griffeth and colleagues found pay a weaker predictor than many expect, which tells me a raise by itself will not solve this, not that wages can be ignored.

Third, swing supervision. Swing will get a stable lead, the same rotation and bale reporting day shift uses, and schedule changes posted at the same time for both shifts.

Fourth, follow-up. The six-month question will become part of a short quarterly pulse survey so that rising intentions to leave show up while there is still time to act.

Conclusion

Our first survey showed a crew that values its coworkers and is worn down by heat, pay and, on swing, inconsistent supervision. Judge and colleagues' review suggests that satisfaction and performance are meaningfully linked, Griffeth and colleagues show why intentions to leave deserve close watching, and Meyer and colleagues explain why staying because the bus stops nearby is a fragile kind of loyalty. The plan focuses on what the company controls and will be checked against the next two surveys and actual quits.

References

Griffeth, R. W., Hom, P. W., & Gaertner, S. (2000). A meta-analysis of antecedents and correlates of employee turnover: Update, moderator tests, and research implications for the next millennium. Journal of Management, 26(3), 463-488. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920630002600305

Judge, T. A., Thoresen, C. J., Bono, J. E., & Patton, G. K. (2001). The job satisfaction-job performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 127(3), 376-407. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.3.376

Meyer, J. P., Stanley, D. J., Herscovitch, L., & Topolnytsky, L. (2002). Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization: A meta-analysis of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61(1), 20-52. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.2001.1842