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Psychologycal Contracts - A Key To Motivating Staff

Psychological Contracts – A Key to Motivating Staff

Raising motivation levels and ensuring commitment are two of the key success factors
when managing people at work. Increasingly managers, whether consciously or not, are
turning to the psychological contract as a way to retain and motivate key staff. In a
recent CIPD survey, 9 out of 10 HR managers agreed it was a useful tool when managing
and recruiting staff, while over one third said they used the concept of the psychological
contract in their everyday work.
What exactly is the psychological contract? It is basically the unspoken contract between
the organisation and the job holder. It encapsulates the expectations of both sides as to
what each expects the employment contract to deliver. Although informal and often
unspoken of directly, the matching of expectations at this level will often lead to an
increased sense of happiness among employees as well as delivering real results. The
psychological contract is something which begins at the recruitment phase, with
expectations being delivered on or not following this. As recruiting and retaining high
quality employees is a key function of management, over promising and under delivering
on the psychological contract can be a vital source of demotivation among the workforce.
These early experiences in an organisation can have a major effect on how the employee
perceives the organisation they have joined. When the experience is positive, job
satisfaction levels, commitment and morale are all boosted, thus leading to a greater
sense of loyalty to the organisation. Also, employees who are given an effective
induction become more productive more quickly as well as being more creative within
their role. Therefore, the first impressions created by an employer form a lasting
impression on any new recruit, particularly in terms of how they evaluate how their
expectations are being matched by their employer.
Some of the questions which employers...