The hidden dangers of job dissatisfaction for your organisation
An organisation that fails to consider the impact of job dissatisfaction amongst staff can be exposed to a variety of non-compliant behaviours engaged by staff. Non-compliant behaviours are “non-task behaviours that have negative organisational implications” (Puffer 1987). These type of behaviours, can be explicit or hidden, and range from minor to severe in their impact upon an organisation.
Cindy Staehle (1985) conducted a study resulting in non-compliant behaviours being classified into six categories:
Avoidance actions
Defensive actions
Passive aggressive actions
Expressive actions
Persuasive actions
Hostile actions
Avoidance actions can entail frequently arriving late for work or leaving early, high levels of sick leave, extended breaks. Defensive actions may involve drinking alcohol during work time, daydreaming at work, staff suppressing their expectations at work. Passive aggressive actions are the most difficult to spot as they are indirect in nature. Staff may intentionally miss deadlines, coast along at work, make as little effort as possible and avoid any additional work. Expressive actions may manifest as staff complaining about jobs to others, staff getting angry with one another or staff being in conflict with their managers. Persuasive actions can include staff encouraging team members to complain to their superiors on their behalf or staff directly trying to influence their superiors concerning their work situation. Hostile actions can be the most damaging of all, such as staff simply refusing to do their work, bad mouthing the organisation to customers or the public, going on strike, engaging in sabotage.
The above non-compliant behaviours are merely a sample of actions available to staff. It should also be considered that the most disgruntled of staff will tend to engage in negative behaviours more frequently and select the most damaging behaviours to alleviate their dissatisfaction.
Management needs to be acutely aware of the impact of management style on the behaviour of their staff. Inappropriate, outdated management practices may achieve goals in the shot term and even the medium term but the trail of destruction they leave in their path can be considerable.
The ultimate goal of management is to achieve organisational objectives through their staff. If staff are dissatisfied, their attention is diluted and distracted from work goals and focused upon their grievances. There is no rational reason why management would want or even allow such an impediment to exist within their work environment.
The starting point for management is to ascertain levels of job satisfaction/dissatisfaction and to proactively address triggers leading to negative non-task behaviours amongst staff.
