Balancing The Scale of Commitment

 

While it may seem self-evident that dedicated employees make better employees, ongoing research seeks to categorize three different types of employee commitment.

 

Specializing in industrial and organizational psychology, Allen and colleague John Meyer authored Commitment in the Workplace: Theory, Research and Application, in which they describe their Three-Component Model (TCM) of commitment and the development of the Commitment Scales. These scales are used to categorize ways in which employees are attached to their organizations. Affective, Continuance and Normative scales measure, respectively, how much an employee wants to, feels they have to, or feels they ought to stay with an organization.

Allen and Meyer's research revealed positively committed employees are happier, more productive, stay with an organization longer and contribute to the organization in ways other than simply doing their job. Allen believes the strength of the research is that they spent a "lot of time on the measurement development" to determine if they had the TCM structure correct and to analyze whether the 'want to', 'have to' and 'ought to' concepts translated with employees.

Since the book's release in 1997, workforce demographics have changed and the concept of staying with one or two organizations for one's entire working life has become an anachronism. Company closures and relocation have also become an every day reality, making it more difficult to gain employee commitment. Nevertheless, Meyer maintains commitment is "still important, but may take different forms, including commitment to one's occupation, workgroup, or even change itself."

With the assistance of Western's Industry Liaison office, the TCM Commitment Scales are widely available to business and academics. The main vehicle for access is the online research platform (www.flintbox.com) where the Commitment Scales survey has long been the 'most active' license. "We find ourselves almost daily directing people to the Flintbox site. It's nice to have a standard, 'thank you for your interest, go here,'" says Meyer. He adds that Industry Liaison also helped out with the marketing of the Commitment Scales: "It's difficult because what we have is not really 'patentable.' The marketability is in the research evidence and reliability of the instruments."

As the Commitment Scales are now in use worldwide, Meyer and Allen are confident their research will help make more committed employees and more appealing workplaces.


To explore the TCM Commitment Scales go to flintbox.com