The document discusses the impact of current trends on job performance and job commitment, defining job performance as behaviors that contribute positively or negatively to organizational goals. It emphasizes that managers across all departments must understand and manage employee motivation and satisfaction to enhance job performance and commitment. Additionally, the document outlines the significance of employee commitment in a competitive environment, highlighting various types such as affective, continuance, and normative commitment, along with strategies employers can implement to foster these commitments.

1. Learning Activity #1
Using the side bars found in this week's content tab, along with
our reading material, explain how the trends are altering or
making job performance harder to manage.
Be sure to identify in the answer what is meant by job
performance.
Explain how the trend affects performance behavior.
Identify the challenge the trend has for the manager.
Learning Activity #2
Using the side bars found in this week's content tab, along with
our reading material, explain how the trends are altering or
making job commitment harder to manage.
Be sure to identify in the answer what is meant by job
commitment.
Explain how the trend affects job commitment.
Identify the challenge the trend has for the manager.
Reading material:
By now, you might be asking yourself: Who is responsible for
Organizational Behavior in an organization? In a sense, the

2. answer is everyone! Although Organizational Behavior is an
area of study, it cuts across all areas of organizational
functioning.
Managers in all departments must know how to motivate their
employees, how to keep people satisfied with their jobs, how to
communicate fairly, how to make teams function effectively,
and how to design jobs most effectively. In short, dealing with
people at work is everybody’s responsibility. So, no matter what
job you do in a company knowing something about
Organizational Behavior is sure to help you do it better.
There are two goals every effective organization needs its
employees to meet, strong job performance and organizational
commitment. Coincidentally, most employees are concerned
with two goals in their work life, doing a job well and to remain
working for a company that they respect. In the weeks to come
we will look at the skills needed by managers to create the
behavioral synergy needed between employee and organization
to meet the primary goals of employee job performance and
commitment. This week we will examine the characteristic
behavior that defines “good” job performance and
organizational commitment.
THEME # 1: Job Performance: What is it and what is
considered good job performance?
We start our discussion this week with job performance.
Understanding our own performance behavior is important to
every employee and understanding the performance of an
employee within their unit or division is critical for managerial
success.
Job Performance is formally defined as the value of the set of
employee behaviors that contribute either positively or

3. negatively to organizational goal accomplishment. (Coquitt,J.,
Lepine, J., & Wesson, M., 2013) Defining good and bad
performance this way suggest behaviors in the workplace that
are within employee control while defining those that are not
acceptable. For example, if you were a waiter at a restaurant
that prides itself on service and you texted your boyfriend
during your break that behavior is not relevant to job
performance. However, if you were texting in the kitchen
resulting in the delay of food going to the customer’s table the
behavior would be performance related. (Coquitt,J., Lepine, J.,
& Wesson, M., 2013)
This week we examine job performance behaviors and what
constitutes good job performance. Generally, relevant job
performance behaviors fall in to three categories, task
performance and citizenship behavior which contributes to the
success of organization positively and counterproductive
behavior which affects the organization negatively. Identifying
behaviors that fall into these three groups and their relevance to
organizational effectiveness will explain why job performance
is considered one of the major outcomes in the study of
organizational behavior.
Read
:
Job Performance Chapter
Definition of Job Performance
SUB THEME: How do companies use job performance
information to assure that employee performance is meeting the
organizations mission?
Several of the most popular tools used by management to collect
relevant performance information are Management by

4. Objectives, behaviorally anchored rating scales, 360-degree
feedback, forced ranking and social networking.
Read
:
Decoding Generational Differences
Global Human Capital Trends Pg 65
The Rise of the New Groupthink
THEME # 2: What is Organizational Commitment and how does
it relate to employee behavior?
Employee commitment is the bond employees experience with
their organization. Employees who are committed to their
organization feel they fit in and understand the goals of the
organization. (Hoek, J., 2016) The value of these employees is
that they tend to be more determined in their work, show
relatively high productivity and are proactive in offering their
support to organizational endeavors.
The importance of employee commitment to a successful
organization is increasing all the time. The pressure that
globalization and disruptive technology has placed upon the
organization and employee has resulted in fierce competition
for customers and talented employees. (Hoek, J., 2016) Notions
of employers having lifetime employees and employees who
want to stay with a company a lifetime has become outdated.
In addition to the increased competition in the global
environment, employees have a stronger sense of individualism.
Employees want to look at themselves as individual within the
organization rather then subordinate to the organization. (Hoek,
J, 2016) Hence, the once expected commitment to the

5. organization is much less of a certainty and makes a committed
employee even more important.
This theme examines the importance of committed employees to
an organization’s success, the types of employee commitment
and the difference between employee commitment and
engagement.
Beyond being supportive of the workforce, companies can
create activities that seek to focus on the three areas of
commitment, affective, continuance and normative. Affective
commitment is when the employee wants to stay. Companies
like Ben and Jerry hold monthly “joy events. During these
events work stop, and the staff hold parties, contests, games
etc.”. Monsanto has people teams that put together employee-
bonding activities like “snowshoe softball”. Leaders suggest
this why they have a voluntary turnover rate of only 3 percent.
(Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J., 2013, pg.80)
On the continuance commitment front creating a salary and
benefits package that makes people financially compelled to
stay is a priority. Continuance commitment is when and
employee needs to stay. Studies suggest that pay level and
benefits are the strongest predictor of voluntary commitment
coming in close is advancement. (Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., &
Wesson, M. J., 2013, pg.81)
In the case of normative commitment, or when an employee
ought to stay, an employer who provides training and
encourages personal development opportunities creates a sense
of fealty among employees. For example, IBM keeps a data
bank of employee skill and uses half of their training budget to
target individual employees for professional development.
(Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J., 2013, pg.83)
Read

6. What is Employee Commitment?
Actions to complete:
Read/view the above materials.
Participate in Week 2 learning activities - Initial Response due
by Thursday, follow up response due by Sunday, 11:59 p.m.
EST.
References
Colquitt, J., LePine, J. A., & Wesson, M. J. (2018).
Organizational behavior: Improving performance and
commitment in the workplace
(2013). Dubuque: McGraw-Hill Education.
Hoek, J. (2016, June 24). What is employee commitment?
Retrieved from
https://www.effectory.com/knowledge/themes/what-is-
employee-commitment/
Table 4. Quits levels and rates by industry and region,
seasonally adjusted. (2018, July 06). Retrieved from
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t04.htm