What factors influence the behavior of an individual at work?

Behavior at work can be influenced by factors both inside and outside of the work environment. Even if the management style, communication techniques and workplace attitudes of a company are top-notch, outside factors can affect production and work behavior of an employee. Sometimes this personal problem affects an employee so much that it changes his attitude and spreads like a ripple in the water, so take into consideration as many factors as possible when assessing someone's work behavior.

Setting

Work environments with lots of light have been shown to increase productivity, but if employees believe they are being watched and studied for how changes to the setting affect their behavior, the positive changes will last, even if the new lighting does not. If work environments are clean and well-kept, employees often have more pride in their work than if a building looks old and dingy. If a building is dirty but the owners clean it up and clean the surrounding area by removing graffiti and picking up litter, chances are employees will follow their lead and do the same.

Management Style

If a boss yells at her employees, especially in front of other employees, and it seems like nothing is ever done up to her expectations, productivity will decline. A simple word of encouragement or taking five minutes to go over expectations will make an employee feel like he is not just another face in the crowd but a valued member of a company team. That feeling of value will make the employee work harder and care about the result, instead of just rushing through a project to check it off his list.

Personal Factors

A person's life does not stop and start at the office front door. Sometimes there are things at home that an employee is dealing with that weigh heavily on her mind. Big events, such as upcoming nuptials, a death in the family or even something small like a fight with her spouse, can affect an employee's work behavior. Everyone has a bad day or two, but if the employee can't seem to snap out of her new attitude, talk to her about the change in behavior. Just knowing someone noticed could snap her out of it.

Communication

Communication is the foundation of any well-run business. Think of a company as a machine and each spoke has to turn a wheel and each wheel is interconnected. If one spoke doesn't receive the command to turn, the works get jammed up. Don't rely on anything that involves multiples like multiple time lines for one project or multiple servers to store papers. Have one master time line that everyone can refer to. Forward all emails to anyone involved on a project and be as transparent as possible to keep the wheels turning like a well-oiled machine.

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The way an individual addresses a situation single-handedly or say in a group is influenced by many factors. The key factors influencing an individual’s attitude in personal as well as social life are −

• Abilities
• Gender
• Race and culture
• Attribution
• Perception
• Attitude

Let’s take a quick look over these major elements that imprints a person’s behavior inside and outside of the organization.

Abilities

Abilities are the traits a person learns from the environment around as well as the traits a person is gifted with by birth. These traits are broadly classified as −

• Intellectual abilities
• Physical abilities
• Self-awareness abilities

In order to understand how these affect a person’s behavior, we need to know what these abilities are.

• Intellectual abilities − It personifies a person’s intelligence, verbal and analytical reasoning abilities, memory as well as verbal comprehension.

• Physical abilities − It personifies a person’s physical strength, stamina, body coordination as well as motor skills.

• Self-awareness abilities − It symbolizes how a person feels about the task, while a manager’s perception of his abilities decides the kind of work that needs to be allotted to an individual.

Thus the psychological, physical, self-assurance traits owned by a person defines the behavior of a person in social and personal life. For ex: Ram has a high IQ level, whereas Rahul can lift a bike and is a strong guy.

Gender

Research proves that men and women both stand equal in terms of job performance and mental abilities; however, society still emphasizes differences between the two genders. Absenteeism is one area in an organization where differences are found as women are considered to be the primary caregiver for children. A factor that might influence work allocation and evaluation in an organization is the manager’s perception and personal values.

For example − An organization encourages both genders to work efficiently towards the company’s goal and no special promotion or demotion is given or tolerated for any specific gender.

Race & Culture

Race is a group of people sharing similar physical features. It is used to define types of persons according to perceived traits. For example − Indian, African. On the other hand, culture can be defined as the traits, ideas, customs and traditions one follows either as a person or in a group. For example − Celebrating a festival.

Race & culture have always exerted an important influence both at the workplace as well as in the society. The common mistakes such as attributing behavior and stereotyping according to individual’s race & culture basically influences an individual’s behavior.

In today’s diverse work culture, the management as well as staff should learn and accept different cultures, values, and common protocols to create more comfortable corporate culture.

For example − A company invites candidates for a job post and hires one on the basis of eligibility criteria and not on the basis of the country a person belongs to or the customs one follows.

Perception

Perception is an intellectual process of transforming sensory stimuli into meaningful information. It is the process of interpreting something that we see or hear in our mind and use it later to judge and give a verdict on a situation, person, group, etc.

It can be divided into six types namely −

• Of sound − The ability to receive sound by identifying vibrations.

• Of speech − The competence of interpreting and understanding the sounds of language heard.

• Touch − Identifying objects through patterns of its surface by touching it.

• Taste − The ability to detect flavor of substances by tasting it through sensory organs known as taste buds.

• Other senses − Other senses include balance, acceleration, pain, time, sensation felt in throat and lungs etc.

• Of the social world − It permits people to understand other individuals and groups of their social world.

For example − Priya goes to a restaurant and likes their customer service, so she will perceive that it is a good place to hang out and will recommend it to her friends, who may or may not like it. However, Priya’s perception about the restaurant remains good.

Attribution

Attribution is the course of observing behavior followed by determining its cause based on individual’s personality or situation.

Attribution framework uses the following three criteria −

• Consensus − The extent to which people in the same situation might react similarly.

• Distinctiveness − The extent to which a person’s behavior can be associated to situations or personality.

• Consistency − The frequency measurement of the observed behavior, that is, how often does this behavior occur.

The framework mentioned says it is all about how an individual behaves in different situations.

For example − Rohit invites Anisha and two more friends for a movie and they agree to bunk and watch the movie, this is consensus. Bunking of class says that they are not interested in their lectures, this is distinctiveness. A little change in the situation, like if Rohit frequently starts bunking the class then his friends may or may not support him. The frequency of their support and their rejection decides consistency.

Attitude

Attitude is the abstract learnt reaction or say response of a person’s entire cognitive process over a time span.

For example − A person who has worked with different companies might develop an attitude of indifference towards organizational citizenship.

Now we have a clear idea about what are the factors responsible for the way we behave. We never think about these elements and how they affect our daily life but we can’t ignore the fact that they are responsible for the way we walk, talk, eat, socialize, etc.

Every individual is different from each other, as the behavior of the human is considered as the most complex one. There are various challenges in an effective organization that could directly or indirectly affect the behavior of the employees. In certain situations, the manager of the organization have to first analyze the particular task, determine the skills required and gather a team that could complement and match the skills of each other. For addressing various factors, safety settings, capabilities of people and limitations have to be analyzed first.  There are various factors that could affect the  organizational behavior of an individual, some of them are:

A. Personal factors – The personal factors that can influence the behavior of an individual is further categorized into 2 parts that includes Biographic and learned characteristics.

1. Biographic Characteristics – Every human being have certain type of characteristics which are inherited and genetic in nature. These characteristics cannot get changed. In an organization, if the manger will come to know about the limitations and qualities each personal possess, then they can easily make use of their behavior techniques of an organization in an effective manner. These characteristics include:

(i) Physical Characteristics – It mainly consists of skin, vision, height, complexion and many more. It creates impact on the performance of the individuals. Also, certain features includes tall, fat or slim. A person with good personality is always expected to dress and behave well in an organization, even if there is any correlation between the behavior and body structure or not.

1. Age– It is the inherited characteristic of an individual. In increasing performance, it is considered as an issue. Young people are expected to behave more energetic, adventurous, innovative, risk taking and ambitious. With the advancement in age, performance of a person is more likely to decline.

2. Gender – It is a genetical feature. This concept has initiated lots of discussion, debates and opinions. It is a traditional view that women are more emotional. A small difference between men and women can affect their job performance. Without any male-female differences, some of the people have competitive drive, leadership, motivation, learning ability, analytical skills or problem solving ability. A study have been conducted which says that the female employees generate more turnover rates. This is because there are more chances of females to quit their job for their personal reasons.

4. Marital Status – A recent research says that the responsibilities of the person inclined with their marital status and it has become difficult to s6table in a particular job for the longer period of time. Employees that are married have fewer absences, more job satisfaction and fewer turnovers.

5. Experience – The tenure or the experience of an employee plays a significant role within the organization. It creates lot of speculations and misconceptions due to the seniority factor. Also, work experience is considered as a good indicator that helps in increasing productivity with greater efficiency and effectiveness. There is a positive relationship between the job performance and the seniority. The turnover of an employee is also considered as negative in relation to the seniority.

2. Learned Characteristics – Learning is defined as a permanent change in the behavior of an employee that results in the interactions with the environment. The biographical features of a person are impossible to modify. Therefore, the managers of the organization paid a great interest in learning, studying and predicting the learned characteristics that include:

(1)Personality– Personality does not only lie with the physical appearance of the person. A person with a good personality comprised of smart person, smiling face and charming personality. This concept is considered as dynamic that describes the growth and development of the psychological system of the person. It is also refereed as personal traits or characteristics that include persistence, dominance, aggressiveness and other qualities that is reflected through the behavior of the person within the organization.

(2)Perception– It is the viewpoint that helps in the interpretation of some situation. Also, it is considered as the process which allows the information to enter in the minds and allowed to obtain sensible meaning for the whole world.

(3)Values – Values are considered as the global belief that instructs different judgments and actions across various situations. It consists of an individual’s idea based on the right, good and desirable opinions. It is closely embedded in the people who could be reflected through their behavior. Also, most of time values are directly influenced from the teachers, parents, friends and various other external factors that completely changed the ideas, opinions and thoughts of the person. For an organizational behavior, values are very significant. It helps in understanding the motivation and the attitude of an individual along with the influences of their perceptions or view point.

B. Environmental Factors – On the behavior of a person, the external environment plays a significant role.

1. Economic Factors – In an economic environment, the behavior of an individual is largely affected due to certain factors including:

(a)Employment Level – The employment opportunities available to an individual directly influence the behavior of an individual. Even after the lack of job satisfaction, the individual have to stick to the same job as there are less job opportunities for him/her. In such cases, it is important that they may be loyal to the company in providing better productivity; they are only remaining in the same organization due to the monetary benefits offered to them.

(c)General Economic Environment – There are various employees that does not have any effect of economic cycle whether in a public sector undertakings or government offices. Regardless of their economic position within the organization, they will receive their salaries. Employees in the private sectors are greatly affected by the stable income and job security but the former employees can be motivated from other factors.

Similarly, there are various other environmental factors in an organization that could affect the behavior of the employees, including social factors, political factors or legal environment.

C. Organizational Factors – With wide variety of resources and organizational systems, individual behavior is influenced that includes:

1. Physical Facilities – At a workplace, the physical environment is considered as an arrangement of people and things positive that could also create influence on other people. There are certain factors that influence the behavior of an individual including cleanliness, light, ventilation, noise level, nature of job, number of people working, etc.

(a)Structure and Design – The way in which every department of the organization is set-up has direct concern with the structure and design. The performance and the behavior of an individual is directly influenced by the position at which person could perfectly fits in the whole organizational hierarchy.

(b)Leadership – The management of the organization establish the system of leadership so that the proper assistance, advice, guidance, direction and coaching could be given to the individuals. The behavior of each employee is influenced to the large extent to the behavior of the leaders or the superiors of the same organization. The behavior of the leaders is more important than the qualities of the leaders.

(c)Reward System – The performance and the behavior of individuals are directly influenced by the reward system that is established by the organization so that the employees could be able to compensate.