6. Managing Psychological Contracts through Human Resource Practices 6.1. Introduction Organisational human resource systems, instruments, techniques or practices have a profound impact on the interpretations that employees make with regard to the exchange relationship between themselves and their organisation. It is the aim of this chapter to illustrate which human resources practices shape psychological contracts in what way. In the following, the term human resource practice refers to all practices (e.g. annual performance appraisals), specific policies (e.g. equal opportunities), tools (e.g. employee surveys) or techniques (e.g. management by objectives) that contribute to managing human resources in an organisation. 6.2. Relevant Practices Most if not all human resource practices may impact on employees’ psychological contracts. For example, job interviews present an opportunity for the organisation to communicate expectations about employee contributions, equal opportunity policies promise fair treatment, leadership training conveys expectations about leadership behaviours or constitutes a fulfilment of obligations as to professional development. Performance-related compensation may deliver a promise of fair pay and convey expected contributions by detailing performance standards. An in-house nursery or flexible hours can fulfil an obligation regarding support with family needs, a company car can deliver promises of recognition, a mentorship programme can contribute to fulfilling an obligation regarding career development. However, the role that each practice plays for an individual employee depends on the content of that employee’s psychological contract and priorities may differ widely between employees and organisations. Nevertheless, some human resource practices play a role beyond making promises or delivering specific perceived obligations. Realistic recruitment, performance appraisal and compensation have been highlighted as particularly rele- vant to psychological contracts (Niehoff et al., 2001; Rousseau, 1995; Sims, 1994). Also, Guest and Conway (2001) have shown a number of what they call “progressive” human resource practices to be related to the state of the psychological contract and outcomes such as cooperative behaviour by employees, involvement in decision- making, commitment, motivation, organisational citizenship behaviour, innovation and performance. More specifically, application of more of these practices to a greater percentage of the workforce in organisations is related to more positive outcomes. An overview of these progressive human resource practices is offered in Table 21.
Transcript
6. Managing Psychological Contracts through Human Resource Practices
6.1. Introduction Organisational human resource systems, instruments, techniques or practices have a profound impact on the interpretations that employees make with regard to the exchange relationship between themselves and their organisation. It is the aim of this chapter to illustrate which human resources practices shape psychological contracts in what way. In the following, the term human resource practice refers to all practices (e.g. annual performance appraisals), specific policies (e.g. equal opportunities), tools (e.g. employee surveys) or techniques (e.g. management by objectives) that contribute to managing human resources in an organisation.
6.2. Relevant Practices Most if not all human resource practices may impact on employees’ psychological contracts. For example, job interviews present an opportunity for the organisation to communicate expectations about employee contributions, equal opportunity policies promise fair treatment, leadership training conveys expectations about leadership behaviours or constitutes a fulfilment of obligations as to professional development. Performance-related compensation may deliver a promise of fair pay and convey expected contributions by detailing performance standards. An in-house nursery or flexible hours can fulfil an obligation regarding support with family needs, a company car can deliver promises of recognition, a mentorship programme can contribute to fulfilling an obligation regarding career development. However, the role that each practice plays for an individual employee depends on the content of that employee’s psychological contract and priorities may differ widely between employees and organisations. Nevertheless, some human resource practices play a role beyond making promises or delivering specific perceived obligations. Realistic recruitment, performance appraisal and compensation have been highlighted as particularly rele-vant to psychological contracts (Niehoff et al., 2001; Rousseau, 1995; Sims, 1994). Also, Guest and Conway (2001) have shown a number of what they call “progressive” human resource practices to be related to the state of the psychological contract and outcomes such as cooperative behaviour by employees, involvement in decision-making, commitment, motivation, organisational citizenship behaviour, innovation and performance. More specifically, application of more of these practices to a greater percentage of the workforce in organisations is related to more positive outcomes. An overview of these progressive human resource practices is offered in Table 21.
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Processes to Achieve Involvement Employment Relation Practices Personnel Techniques
Tries to make jobs of employees as interesting as possible
Actively uses team working where possible Uses psychometric tests as a standard
part of the selection process Keeps employees informed about
business issues Has a works council or consultative
process to involve employees Tries to fill vacancies from inside the
organisation Provides opportunities for training or
development Has a stated policy of deliberately avoiding compulsory redundancies
Has conducted a company-wide staff attitude survey
Tries to get employees involved in workplace decision-making
Has provisions to help employees deal with non-work responsibilities
Relates some part of pay to individual performance
Carries out equal opportunities practices in the workplace
Provides regular employee performance appraisals
Table 21: Progressive human resource practices (Guest & Conway, 2001)
6.3. Functions of Practices In section 5.4.1 human resource practices have been described as secondary contract makers (Rousseau, 1995). In other words, human resource practices contribute to building a psychological contract with job candidates and newcomers. On the one hand this is because mutual obligations are expressed and thus commitments to future action are made by both the applicant who later becomes a new hire and the organi-sation. Also, candidates may interpret the recruitment process itself in terms of how the organisation treats people (Rousseau & Greller, 1994). Furthermore, during socialisation the newcomer becomes familiar with other human resource practices like performance appraisal and makes further interpretations. But communication of information relevant to psychological contracts is not limited to newcomers. Guzzo and Noonan (1994) argue that communication through human resource practices is continuous. More specifically, Rousseau and Greller (1994) propose that human resource practices can convey messages about commitments to future action by the organisation and they can convey performance standards, i.e. employee obligations. In summary, human resource practices can function as communication channels through which organisations can promise certain rewards and voice expectations of employee contributions.
Secondly, specific human resource practices can convey specific rewards. Equal opportunities policies promise fair treatment, open door policies promise access to information and equality, employee surveys promise participation. As has been pointed out above, most or all human resource practices may be interpreted to involve a promise which evolves into an obligation (Conway and Briner, 2005). Guzzo and Noonan (1994) pointed out that the kind of human resource practices in place convey messages about whether a relational or a transactional contract is proposed by the organisation. Offering employees the opportunity to work flexible hours may signal
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concern for employee wellbeing (Scandura & Lankau, 1997) and as such a more relational psychological contract.
Thirdly, Guzzo and Noonan (1994) argue that employees rely on their evaluation of human resource practices to assess whether obligations the organisation has incurred have been kept. Also, Grant (1996) has demonstrated how employees use human resource practices to check whether management rhetoric matches with organisational reality (see section 5.3.4). A working parent may have been promised a family-friendly environment with an opportunity to work from home some of the time. If the way projects are assigned and performance is appraised do not accommodate telework, the promise may be seen as unfulfilled (Nord et al., 2002). Therefore delivering the inducements promised previously is another function of human resource practices in the context of psychological contracts. Again nearly all human resource practices can contribute to fulfilling specific promises made.
Fourthly, certain human resource practices can constitute voice channels that give employees the opportunity to signal that a contract breach or violation has occurred. Based on work by Hirschman (1970), Rousseau (1995) suggests four kinds of behavioural outcomes after contract violation: voice, neglect, loyalty/silence and exit. Voice has been described by Hirschman (1970; p. 30) as “any attempt at all to change rather than to escape from, an objectionable state of affairs” and as “a constructive effort aimed at repairing the employment relationship” by Turnley and Feldman (1999b; p. 900). For the organisation this is expected to be more desirable than neglect of work duties, sabotage or exiting the organisation. Rousseau (1995) argues that voice is more likely when there are voice channels available to the employee whose contract has been violated.
Human resource practices that constitute voice channels can be suggestion schemes, grievance procedures or question & answer (Q&A) sessions (Spencer, 1988). A Q&A session following the announcement of a merger gives employees the opportunity to voice their concerns for example regarding job security and status in the new organisation. So the function of certain human resource practices can be to give employees an opportunity to initiate communication about perceived violations or draw attention to promised inducements that are as yet unfulfilled.
Fifthly, it has been pointed out (Hiltrop, 1996) that high commitment practices such as quality circles or team work give employees the opportunity to influence decisions that contribute to their own psychological contracts being positive by increasing the probability that obligations will be kept and breach avoided. For example an improvement of processes in a business unit suggested by a quality circle may help to reduce the workload of an employee involved in the quality circle. This may contribute to fulfilling a perceived obligation of concern for work-life balance. Thus, employees may participate in psychological contract management.
Sixthly, some human resource practices may allow the organisation to gain insight into the psychological contracts of their employees. Employee surveys may include
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questions about psychological contracts; a recruiter may ask what an applicant expects from the organisation.
Finally, Spencer (1988) found that when employees are able to voice dissatisfaction through appropriate voice mechanisms, they are more likely to consider organisational procedures for problem-solving as effective. Also, Guest and Conway’s (2001) progressive human resource practices have been shown to contribute to perceptions of fairness by employees. In section 3.3.4.2 it has been highlighted that fairness through procedural justice is central to effective psychological contracting and mitigates negative consequences of perceived breach. Therefore, some human resource practices such as voice channels or equal opportunities policies may serve to demonstrate the organisations general commitment to fairness. Table 22 provides an overview of the possible functions of human resource practices.
Communication Channel: Organisation - Employee
Communication of promised inducements
Communication of expected contributions
Communication of desired focus and scope of contract
Protection from perceived reneging
Conveying Specific Messages: Organisation - Employee Offering specific inducements
Fulfilling Organisational Obligations Delivering specific inducements
Communication Channel: Employee - Organisation
Opportunity for applicants to voice expectations
Opportunity for employees to signal state of psychological contract and perceived mutual obligations
Allowing Employee Participation in Psychological Contract Management
Opportunity for shaping by individual through involvement in decisions
Opportunity to negotiate mutual obligations bilaterally
Identifying Employee Perceptions of Organisational Messages Asking about employees’ views of mutual obligations
Evaluating whether specific human resource practices are seen to deliver perceived obligations
Demonstrating Commitment to Fairness
Table 22: Functions of human resource practices for psychological contract management
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Employees do not, however, constantly interpret human resource practices as to their meaning with regard to psychological contracts. In other words, human resource practices do not necessarily serve the above-named functions at every instance. Guzzo and Noonan (1994) have pointed out that organisations have little control over when these interpretative processes take place. Consequently, it may be difficult for the organisation to ensure that specific human resource practices function at the time and in the manner intended.
6.4. Functions of Specific Practices
6.4.1. Realistic Recruitment Realistic recruitment or realistic job previews (Wanous, 1980) have been highlighted by various authors as a central means of creating positive psychological contracts (Guzzo & Noonan, 1994; Hiltrop, 1996; Morrison & Robinson, 1997; Niehoff et al., 2001; Paul et al., 2000; Rousseau, 1995; Sims, 1994). Niehoff und Paul (2001) have pointed out that even the career web page of an organisation should be seen as part of realistic recruitment as applicants start building an impression of mutual obligations before the selection process starts.
Realistic job previews usually focus on presenting realistic information to job candidates about the tasks to be fulfilled and other information directly related to the job. But the focus can be widened to also present realistic information about the employment strategy (Guzzo & Noonan, 1994; Paul et al., 2000). Rousseau (1995) suggests including the following three kinds of activities in realistic recruiting:
1. A preview of job responsibilities and career opportunities 2. A work sample that gives applicants practical insights into some job tasks (see
also Becker & Brinkkötter, 2005) 3. Detail on the organisational offer regarding the exchange relationship, including
information on
a. performance expectations b. performance review process c. kinds of training on offer d. expected tenure e. general behavioural expectations regarding e.g. team orientation
Rousseau (1995) also suggests recruiters ask for the expectations of the job candidate and double check whether expectations have been understood correctly. These recommendations imply that realistic recruitment ideally involves a negotiation process aiming at alignment between employment strategy and the psychological contract as emphasised by Yan et al. (2002, see section 5.3.4). Also, realistic recruiting may at a later point protect the organisation from accusations of reneging – “We told you you would have to work long hours”.
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Rousseau (1995) argues that realistic recruitment contributes to building psycho-logical contracts that are more likely to be kept. Sims (1994) clarifies this by highlighting that realistic recruitment has a warning effect: even if organisational offers do not seem desirable to the individual or are not integrated in the psychological contract by the individual for ideological reasons, when violation occurs it does not come unexpectedly. Secondly, Sims (1994) points out that realistic recruitment has a self-selection effect: individuals will only accept the job if the organisational offer at least broadly fits their expectations, thereby again reducing the risk of perceived violation upon confrontation with organisational reality.
6.4.2. Employee Survey and Focus Group Employee surveys (Domsch, 2003; Freese & Schalk, 1996; Guzzo & Noonan, 1994; Paul et al., 2000) can be used to gain an understanding of the content and state of employees’ psychological contracts. Robinson et al. (1994) suggest including questions that ask employees whether they think that the organisation is generally keeping its promises. Guzzo and Noonan (1994) and Paul et al. (2000) particularly mention that surveys could include open-ended questions that ask for employee interpretations of human resource practices. Checking whether employees interpret human resource practices in the way intended by the organisation is a meaningful starting-point in order to ensure alignment between human resources practices and the employment strategy (Lepak & Snell, 1999). Paul et al. (2000) propose that survey responses should be reviewed by a committee including management and employee representatives and that results should be discussed in open meetings to avoid charges of manipulating results. Surveys present a way of taking the temperature at organisational level and contribute to managing psychological contracts indirectly, since they can provide information that is used as input into further actions aimed at facilitating positive psychological contracts. Nevertheless, surveys are fairly inflexible as they are usually carried out annually or biannually and the initiative is taken by the organisation.
Secondly, focus groups can provide insight into psychological contracts. Guzzo and Noonan (1994) recommend asking groups of employees working together in teams or departments to provide information on their interpretations of human resource practices. Guzzo and Noonan (1994) also see this as a way of gauging the impact of human resource practices that have not yet been introduced. Paul et al. (2000) recommend focus groups to include members representing different employee groups. Freese and Schalk (1996) suggest that focus groups are especially useful when new teams are starting to work on a project. A focus group in that case offers an opportunity to exchange views on contributions and rewards. Again, the disadvantage of focus groups is that they are initiated by the organisation. Employees can only voice their opinion when asked to do so by being invited to take part in a focus group.
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6.4.3. Suggestion Scheme, Grievance Procedure, Quality Circle Spencer (1988) found that the number of voice channels provided by the organisation was positively related to retention of employees. Voice channels included in this study were grievance procedures, suggestions schemes, employee-management meetings, counselling services, the existence of an ombudsman, non-management task forces, as well as Q&A session and survey feedback. Consequently, providing employees with communication channels they can access when required can be seen as a way of avoiding exit as a consequence of breach by the organisation.
Furthermore, suggestion schemes as well as non-managerial task forces or quality circles provide an opportunity for employees to contribute to an appropriate imple-mentation of the employment strategy. As any other human resource practice, suggestion schemes can also simply fulfil a specific obligation, in this case about involvement and participation. Furthermore, the existence of formal grievance procedures can convey a general commitment by the organisation to fair treatment: each grievance, regardless of what it consists of and who files it, will be processed through the same pre-established stages. This fulfils two of the pre-requisites of procedural justice in organisations: consistency of procedures across people and time as well as correctability of decisions, which may have been based on incomplete or inaccurate information (see section 3.3.4.2).
6.4.4. Performance Appraisal Performance appraisal can play a central and complex role for communicating about mutual obligations. Performance appraisal is most importantly an opportunity for the organisation to communicate its expectations about employee contributions by setting performance criteria. But performance appraisal also sends implicit messages to the employee through the way the process has been shaped by the organisation. Rousseau (1996) has pointed out that performance appraisal sends messages in three ways: through what is measured (e.g. group or individual performance), through who measures (superior or 360º) and through how data on performance is used afterwards (linked to pay and/or training). Thus, a particular performance appraisal process may contribute to facilitating positive psychological contracts if its implicit messages confirm other messages that have explicitly been communicated, e.g. “We want team players, we value everyone’s opinion and provide continuous development” in the case of a 360-degree process based partly on group performance and linked to training and development. It follows from this that if organisations want to use performance appraisal processes to facilitate positive psychological contracts, the process should be designed in a way that matches promises that have been made about involvement, development and team-orientation vs. rewards for individual performance. As such, performance appraisal can function not only to communicate expectations but also to fulfil obligations already incurred (Guzzo & Noonan, 1994).
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If performance appraisal is based on a management by objectives approach and performance appraisal also involves agreeing on new goals for the following appraisal period, then the process also allows for employees to contribute to specifying their own obligations. In this context Wellin (2007) has pointed to the importance of objective setting.
6.4.5. Compensation System Additionally, Niehoff et al. (2001) have pointed to the relevance of compensation and benefit packages for facilitating positive psychological contracts. They argue that compensation packages reflect management commitment to integrity and fairness. Involvement of employees in the design of compensation packages can improve communication about compensation and contribute to creating realistic expectations about pay. Lucero and Allen (1994) have furthermore described how providing benefits, such as health care insurance, has become an important contractual obligation for US organisations. However, this contribution highlights how employee perceptions of human resource practices are context-specific. Lucero and Allen’s (1994) argument is based on health care insurance regulations in the US which do not apply in Germany where the employer’s role in health care insurance provisions is different: contributing to pay-rolled staff’s health insurance is mandatory not voluntary.
6.4.6. Manuals and Memos Rousseau (1995) has also proposed that personnel manuals and memos can be used to shape psychological contracts in a way that she calls “cynical” (p. 152). Written documents can be used to frequently remind employees that transactional contract terms that may be seen as unfavourable by employees still hold despite other more relational aspects of the relationship that may have developed over time. To illustrate this, Rousseau (1995) provides the example of US employers confirming time and again that employees are employed and can be dismissed “at-will”, i.e. without reason. Thus, memos and manuals may shape psychological contracts by communicating organisational offers and thus offer protection against perceived reneging.
6.5. Conclusions Table 23 summarises and integrates sections 6.3 and 6.4 by highlighting which of the potential functions of human resource practices for facilitating positive psychological contracts specific human resources practices can serve. Detail is given on whether application of a certain practice influences psychological contracts of individual employees, groups or all employees (Level of Impact) and whether at a given time application of a practice is initiated by an individual employee or organisational representatives (Incident Initiated).
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Practice Level of Impact Incident Initiated by
Realistic recruitment Individual Organisation
Realistic career web page Organisational/all applicants Organisation
Focus group Group Organisation
Performance appraisal Individual Organisation
Communication Channel: Organisation –
Employee
Memos/manual All possible Organisation Conveying Specific
Messages: Organisation – Employee
All possible All possible Organisation
Fulfilling Organisational Obligations All possible All possible Organisation
Realistic recruitment Individual Organisation
Employee surveys Organisational Organisation
Q&A session Organisational or Group Organisation
Suggestion scheme Individual Individual
Grievance procedure Individual Individual
Communication Channel: Employee –
Organisation
Counselling service or ombudsman Individual Individual
Performance appraisal with MBO approach Individual Organisation
Perceptions of Organisational Messages Focus groups Group Organisation
Equal opportunity policy Organisational N/a
Involvement of staff in design of C&B system Organisational N/a
Suggestion scheme Organisational N/a
Grievance procedures Organisational N/a
Q&A sessions Organisational or Group N/a
Focus groups Organisational N/a
Quality circles Organisational N/a
Demonstrating Commitment to Fairness
Proactively involving work council Organisational N/a
Table 23: Human resource practices associated with each function
However, most of the authors whose work this summary is based on have not empirically demonstrated the relationship between usage of these practices and positive psychological contracts. It is also important to keep in mind that to a certain extent the role of specific human resource practices in fulfilling obligations are person-specific, as it may depend on the person whether there is any perceived obligation to
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fulfil. Secondly, the role of specific human resource practices may be organisation-specific as the way in which certain practices are enacted may differ widely – in one organisation performance appraisal may mean ratings on certain criteria while in many German organisations it also entails a so-called “Entwicklungsgespräch”, in which employees are given the opportunity to suggest directions in which they wish to develop. Finally, functions depend on the wider (e.g. national) context in which the organisation moves, e.g. legislation on employer contribution to health care insurance. Consequently, the list of human resource practices given here is neither exhaustive nor final and warrants further analysis.
It has been the aim of this chapter to specify which human resource practices contribute to shaping psychological contracts. This summary highlights that organisations can take various avenues in facilitating positive psychological contracts through human resource practices. Organisations can shape psychological contracts for example by creating recruitment processes that involve clear and realistic communi-cation of contributions expected and rewards offered, by allowing employee participa-tion in the development of the human resource practices that will shape their psycholo-gical contracts or by introducing grievance procedures and suggestion schemes that may reduce the impact of breach by allowing employees to voice their concerns and suggest changes. However, there are few indications in the literature on which practices are most important for facilitating positive psychological contracts. For an exception, see Guest and Conway (2001), who found that the progressive human resource practices they explored were related to the extent to which organisations were perceived to have kept the promises made. Furthermore, there are few indications as to how practices should be designed to serve as communication channels about mutual obligations. For an exception see Rousseau’s (1995) instructions on realistic recruitment.
Research presented in this chapter also showed that the influence of human resource practices on psychological contracts is complex: one practice may fulfil various func-tions and each function is fulfilled by various practices, thus again highlighting the need for alignment firstly with the employment strategy and secondly between human resources practices in order to avoid conflicting messages.
With regard to the focus of this research on the role of supervisors in facilitating psychological contracts, research presented above indicates some interfaces between psychological contract management through human resource practices and through supervisors. Some human resource practices offer frameworks within which super-visors have the opportunity to facilitate positive psychological contracts, mainly recruitment and performance appraisal.
In order to enable supervisors to do this, Rousseau and Greller (1994) have suggested that organisations should educate them so that they are able to convey realistic messages about opportunities, resources and performance requirements that are in line with current human resource practices. Systematically exploring which
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human resource practices supervisors make use of to influence the psychological contracts of their subordinates and in what way they do so would be a promising avenue for further research in order to understand the context-dependency of supervisor psychological contract management.
