Not knowing the input of human resource to the development of business, may lead to chaos and anarchy in an organization. This is because human being are the hallmarks of productivity. Without them all other factors of production cannot yield desirable goals. This is why the management of these factors or production must be well appreciated not withstanding other contingent problems such an important entity needs a careful management strategy to enhance performance in the organization. The study therefore aimed at assessing the influence of attitude on employee’s performance of an employee captioned on job related attitude style affect productivity of an employee. The paper recommended such like periodic performance appraised, creating satisfaction through creating room for achievement, implementation of a good industrial relationship and giving employee opportunity to participate in decision making.
Determination of business success today goes beyond improvement of equipment and introduction of new and improved machines that will aid production. While business needs to make profit as its main sustenance. Because for business or organization to remain in a competitive environment, employers must be one of the main focuses of the organization. Emphasis is rather on human being who also are factors of production, that coordinates, plan, organize, direct other factors of production, land and capital [1-4].
It is true that human element of the organization constitutes the driving force an organization, thereby necessitating the needs of interpersonal relationship between the management and employees of which understanding the two axes of human element on the work place generate interest in the display of certain attitude which invisibly affects productivity and growth of business.
The understanding of the two-word influence and employee attitude would less on most of the industrial conflict that arises as a result of mutual suspicious and misinterpretation of attitude. Employees are mainly concerned with maximizing regard in the forms of income, wages incentive remunerations etc. also appropriate wok environment that would not endanger their wellbeing. Management in its part aim to achieve goals through others which should not be against the overall objectives of the organization [2,3,5].
In the early-stage management development concerns were mainly on the structuring of work and organization rates on the human aspects or organization culture. All these have a direct influence on the attitude on the work place these made employee and management employee in the organization. This leads to research into human behavior at the work place after the industrial revolution with Ection Mavo, Abraham Maslow and other industrial psychologist [6-8].
Attitude is directly linked many expect of behavior it constitutes the ways you behave towards someone or in a particular situation, especially when this shows how you feel (Longman Dictionary). It has been considered to be a relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular way towards objective, Institution ideas of other people [7-9].
Attitude constituted a certain percentage the reasons for employee turnover. Any management that pays no attention to the reaction of employees to management attitude and culture, spend more time in conflict resolution rather than employee’s harmonization and productivity [10-12].
The influence of attitude on employee cannot be over emphasized because it reveals that it is a psychological factor. It is either attitude of management is influencing the employees positively or negatively or that employee’s attitude through carefully selected I and calculate to frustrate management are influencing management too.
It is certain that most attitudes are deeply held and difficult to change while others are more superficial and easier to drop and amend. It is therefore important for management to creeds congenial organization which is for more important that financial rewards to employee. The way an organization is set up and run has a major effect on the productivity of the persons who works there. Employee expects more out of work than merely money or tangible achievement for most employees work also brings the needs for social interaction. For a job to be performed by employees with much interest, there must be put in place ways to influence employees by management [9,12,14].
In a nutshell, this research will dissect analyze and assess the extent to which influence of attitude affects the employee in an organization. It would also endeavor to calibrate the philosophy of motivation and leadership which have direct linked on attitude and behavior at the work environment.
The paper depended on both primary and secondary source of data. To generate the primary data a field survey was conducted through the use of questionnaire. Therefore, the paper was quantitative as some relevant journals, textbook, paper representation and to a large extent internet (website) of some scholars. This paper is basically non-empirical since information is collected directly without changing the environment.
The Concept of Leadership
For modern organization to be successful efficient and effective, it is absolutely imperative for employees and indeed the manages of the firm to know what roles and responsibilities they should perform for the prosecution of the interest of the organization towards attaining the corporate goals and objects which in return reflects on employees’ attitude towards their job which also produce better performance.
The importance of the work place environment cannot be over emphasized because many managers and supervisors labour under the mistaken impression that the level of employee’s performance on the job is proportional to the size of the employee’s pay packet. Although this may be true in a minority of cases, numerous employees’ surveys have shown by and large this to be untrue. In fact, salary increases and bonuses for performance in many instances have a very limited short-term effect. The extra money soon comes to be regarded not as an incentive but as an entitlement.
“Our people are our greatest asset” it is often said, sadly in many cases the reality is the converse. In today’s competitive business environment, organizations can no longer afford to waste the potential of their workforce.
This paper will bring to light most of the key factors in employee’s workplace environment that impact greatly on their level of motivation and performance. Looking at employee’s performance, their tract are to be evaluated and some of the guidelines which can be used in evaluating an employee’s overall performance are:
Knowledge of Work: How well does the employee know his or her job?
Quality of Work: Is employee’s rate of production adequate?
Quantity of Work: Does the employee make frequent mistake?
Initiative: Does employee volunteers for new assignments and responsibility?
Dependability/Responsibility: Does employees consistently fulfill responsibility?
Punctuality: Is the employee consistently prompts?
Supervisory Ability: Do employees exist a positive influence other?
When these many questions have been given adequate answers to, then we say that the employees’ attitudes are on check, while in a long-run shows how his or her performance can be checked on influence placed on his or her attitude.
An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represent an individual’s degree of his or her like or dislike for an item. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person place, thing or event. This is often referred to as the attitude object people can be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive and negative attitude towards the items in question.
Attitudes are judgment as they develop on an ABC model (affect, behavior and cognition) the affective response is an emotional response that expresses an individual degree of preference for an entity. The behavioral intention is a verbal indication. The cognitive response is cognitive evaluation of the entity that constitutes an individual’s belief about an object must attitudes are the result of either “direct experience or observational learning from the environment”.
It must be noted that some factors influence nature of attitude like expectation, effect symbolic pre-disposition and ideology etc. values and attitude should not be mistaken. While value is more global and abstract than attitude for example the value of freedom encompasses attitude towards censorship entrepreneurship, political correctness and smoking in public etc. unlike personality attitude are expected to change as a function of experience.
It has been argued that hereditary variables many affect attitudes but believes that many do so indirectly. For example, if one inherent the disposition to become an extrovert, this may affect one’s attitude to certain style of music. There are numerous theories of attitude formation and attitude change. These includes:
Consistency Theories: Which imply that we must be consistent in our beliefs and values? The most famous example of such a theory is dissonance reduction theory, associated with lean Festinger, although there are other such as balance of theory of Fritz Heider;
Self-perception theory associated with Darly Ben
Persuasion
Elaboration: Likelihood model associated with Richard E. Petty and the Heuristic systematic model of Shelly chicken
Social Judgment Theory
Balance theory
It also believes that attitude can be changed through, persuasion. The celebrated work of Carl Hovland at Yale University in the 1950’s and 1960’s helped to advance knowledge of persuasion. In Hovland’s views we should understand attitude change as a response to communication. He and His colleagues did experimental research into the factors that can affect the persuasiveness of message.
Target Characteristics
There are characteristics that refer to the person who receives and processes a message. One such trait is intelligence. It seems that more intelligent people are less easily persuaded by one sided message. Another variable that has been studied in the category is self-esteem. Although it is sometimes thought that those higher in self-esteem are less easily persuaded; there is some evidence that the relationship between self-esteem and persuasibility is actually curvilinear with people’s moderate self-esteem being more easily persuaded than both those of light and two self-esteem level. The mind frame and morel of the target also plays a role in this process.
Source Characteristics
The major source characteristic is expertise, trustworthiness and interpersonal attraction or attractiveness.
The credibility of a perceived message has been found to be a key. Variable here; if one reads a report about health and believes it came from a professional medical journal, one may be more easily, persuaded than if one believes it is from a popular newspaper. Some psychologists have debated whether this is a long-lasting effect. The effect of telling people that a message came from a credible source disappeared after several weeks (the so-called “sleeper effect”). Whether there is a sleeper effect is controversial.
Received wisdom is that if people are informed of the source of a message before hearing it, there is less likelihood of a sleeper effect than if they are told a message and then told its source.
Message Characteristics
The nature of the message plays a role in persuasion. Sometimes presenting both sides of a story is useful to help change attitude. These shows how attitude can change looking at emotion and attitude change we find out that emotion is a common component in persuasion, social influence and attitude change. Much of attitude research emphasized the importance of affective or emotion components. Emotion works hand on hand with the cognitive process or the way we think, about an issue or situation.
Emotional appeals are commonly found in advertising, health campaigns and political message. Recent example includes no smoking health campaigns and political campaign advertising emphasizing the fear of terrorism.
Taking into consideration current attitude research; define “attitude” as mental and neutral representation organized through experience exerting a directive or dynamic influence on behavior. Attitudes and attitude object are functions of cognitive, affective and co-native components. Attitude are part of the brain’s associative networks, the spider-likes structures residing in long term that consist of affective and cognitive modes linked through associative pathways.
Suggestion was made that the inter-structural composition of an associative network can be altered by the activation of s single mode. There by activating an affective or emotion mode, attitude change may be possible though affective and cognitive components tend to be inter-twined. In primary affective network, it is more difficult to produce cognitive counter augments in the resistance to persuasion and attitude change.
Definition of Terms
Attitude: Is a relatively lasting, feelings, belief and behavior tendencies directed towards specific people, groups ideas, issues or objects.
Leadership
Is the effort to influence or change the behavior of others in order to accomplish organizational, individual and personal goals.
Organization
As a consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people that function on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set goals.
Employees
These are a set of people (labour) engaged in an organization to carry out its activities to achieve its aims and objectives.
Characteristic of Attitude
Attitude are learned: People are not born with attitude. They acquire over the course of socialization in childhood and adolescent
Attitude are global: Typically emotional, evaluation. Having an attitude means you have categorized something and made a judgment of its net value or worth. It means that you are no longer neutral about the topic. It is also composed of beliefs affects and perhaps intentions to behave one way or another
Attitude influence thought and actions: Attitude organized your social world. They allow us to quickly categorize people, places and events and to figure out what’s going on
From the foregoing, attitude can be viewed as a conscious, oriented behavioral from our feelings, ideas and experience which can be manipulated for efficient and effective productivity or otherwise.
This paper work identified “3” (three) type of attitude which will be discussed below and also “two” (2) other from other research works.
Cognitive Components
It refers to that part of attitude which is related in general know to a person. For example, he says smoking is injurious to health such type of idea of a person is called cognitive component of attitude.
Effective Components
This part of attitude is related to the statement which affects another person. For example, it is an organization a personal report is given to the general manager. In the report, he parts out that the sales staff is not performing their due responsibilities, the marketing manager to negotiate with sale staff.
Behavioral Component
The behavioral component refers to that part of attitude which reflects the intention of a person in short run or in long run. For example, before the production and handing process of the product. Report is prepared by the production department which consist of their intention in near future and long run and this report is handed over to top management for the decision.
Other component gotten from other writers are listed below:
Belief
These can be termed as one’s established perception about the attitude object. What a person believes to be true. It is a knowledge one presumes to have about a thing. A person’s belief can be developed from his past experience, learning and cultural background.
Feelings
It is an individual perception towards something which may be similar to emotion. Feeling represent your positive or negative evaluation of the attitude objects. Some people think that superior and subordinate relationship is an organization; others think it is not necessary. You are like or dislike of this action represents your assessed feelings towards the attitude object.
Note must be taken that behavioral intention is what guides a person behavior towards something. It represents your motivation to engage in a particular behavior with respect to the attitude object. Employees attitude to work depend on the motivation they receive from management. Employee may not actually enjoy the work he does, but because there are some incentive attitudes to it, his attitude towards it may be positive thereby productivity can be guaranteed.
Types of Attitudes
An individual may have a thousand attitudes that paper will be looking at several of them, more of those involves or are related to job of the employees.
Effect (Emotion)
Evaluation by means of the counter (speaker) indicating how they are emotionally disposed to the person, (lung, happening or state of affairs) for example “I love jazz “This new proposal by the Government terrifies me”.
Judgment (Ethics)
Normative assessment of human behavior typically making reference to ruler or conventions of behavior for example “He corrupted agree to accept money from those biding for the contract; our never classmate seems rather eccentric.
Appreciation (aesthetics) assessment of the form, appearance composition impact significance etc. of human artifacts natural objects as well as human individuals but human behavior by reference to aesthetics and other system of social value.
Attitude is the fundamental factor underlying the successful application of all other performance factors, unfortunately, too often attitudes is dismissed as something we’re cursed or just too intangible to deal with objectively in the work place.
Three (3) Types of Job-Related Attitude
Job Satisfaction: This is taken as the individual whole attitude towards his job. One of the oldest beliefs in the business world is that “a happy worker is a productive worker; some scholars in this field have given the evidence that there is moderate relationship between job satisfaction and performance. It also said from employee attitude we can deduce if he is satisfied or not. An employee who is satisfied with management policy and programmes held a positive attitude towards his work sometimes when we appraise employee’s performance and observe that it does not conform to standard, it might be as a result of employee’s dissatisfaction with his work which is caused by inconclusive work environment lack of equitable reward or organization policy.
Job Involvement
This essentially mean the degree to which a person identified with his/her job and actively participate in with the advent of Just in Time (JIT) Total Quality Management (TOM) strategic implementation etc. management should use appropriate Management scale to elicit and get full commitment from employees. Reason conducted by organizational behaviorist have shown that individuals who express high involvement in their jobs are likely to be more productive, have higher satisfaction and less likely to leave their job than employees with low involvement.
Organization Commitment
This is the attitude towards the organization in terms of loyalty and identification with the organization. It is employee’s emotional attachment to identify with and his involvement in a particular organization. This occurs when the organization is the target of the individual commitment. Management has good reason to pay close attention to employee loyalty.
Exemplify Three Different Ways of Approaching Life and Relating to Others
Spectators with Neutral Attitudes: Spectators watch life happen and observe others. They play it safe and try to avoid risks. They are also afraid of change. They often tired or detached. Their defining words are maybe their prevailing action to coast typical phases:
I doubt it
I might
I don’t know
I’m hesitant
Critics with Neutral Attitudes
Critics comment on life and complain. They critique after the fact, imposing their “expertise” annoyed about changes. They often appear frustrated or pessimistic. Their defining word is “No” their prevailing action stop. Typical phrases:
I can’t
I won’t
No way
You made me
Players with Positive Attitude
Players actively participate in life and embrace opportunities they take risk and are counting to mistakes. Players enjoy learning and change they are usually confident and optimistic, their defining words is “Yes”
Their prevailing action: go typical phrases:
I can
I will
I’ sure
I chose to
Most of us have some of each type and attitude in us often, though our general attitude predominates.
Functions of Attitude
Knowledge: One of the major functions is to provide a basic for the interpretation and classification of new information. Attitude provides a knowledge base framework within which new information can be placed.
Expressive
Attitude becomes a means of expression. They enable individuals to indicate to others the value that they hold and this to express their self-concept, adopt or internalize the value of a group. Management attitude in an organization send to employee the value which the management place on some behavior in the organization.
Instrument
Held attitude maximize reward and minimize sanction, hence attitude towards either people or object might be held because of past positive or negative experience. Behavior or knowledge which has resulted in the satisfaction of needs is thus more likely to result in a favorable attitude.
Ego Defensive
Attitude may be held in order to protect the ego from an undesirable truth reality. In-depth understanding of the management attitude by employee provides employee adequate knowledge about the goals and objectives of the organization and also it will be instrument to the guiding principles of the employee.
Management of Attitudes
Management attitude can simply be seen in terms of management values and motivation. A given manager possesses certain human value that serve to guide his or her general behavior in society. There is no fundamental adherence to single management practice with the result that managers apply their own standard of behavior to a given situation.
The importance of establishing correct and regular pattern of management attitude inevitable. When declares that all the activities of any enterprise and initiated and determined by the person who praised for its very flat management structure. Further indication that the culture and ethic of a company is the most important consideration for employee is that the top five employers in the survey recorded their best results in section one of the survey which relates to employees’ feelings, about their company, particularly communication and management styles.
Open internal communication, positive management style, clearly defined values and management valuing the contributions of others was qualities of the top employees that scored them high points. Survey resulted also revealed that agencies in general performance better than marketers in this regard.
Encourage all respondents regardless of company or agency type scored their manager higher on communicating their vision for the company, practicing what they preach being a good mentor and providing staff with opportunities to learn new skills.
Workplace facilities and financial compensation were barely an issue for employees compared with flexibility of the work environment, friendliness and enthusiasm in the office and unity of staff. Much of the feedback from respondents can be summed up by this comment from a stream employee. “When something outstanding in “pat on the back” is given and whist we all like to earn more pay, the pat on the act can be just as rewarding.
Factors that Influence Employees Performance
Goal Setting: This involves employees in setting meaningful goals and performance measures for their works. This can be done informally between the employee and their immediate supervisor or as part of an organizational formal performance management process. The key here is each employee is actively engaged in the goal setting process and takes ownership of the final goals and measures.
Performance Feedback
Regular feedback to employees’ information on how they are performing. This should consist of both positive feedback on what the employee is doing right as well as feedback on what require improvement. The feedback needs to be as objective as possible and delivered with the appropriate inter-personal conflict resolution skills. It can be feedback delivered as part of a formal performance management cycle.
Role Congruity
Work to ensure that the role that the employee is required to perform is consistent with their expectations on joining the organization are typically reflected in formal document, such as job description and role specification this expectation should be consistent with tasks allocated by the employee’s immediate supervisor.
Defined Process
Many errors defects and customers complaints are the result of poor process management. Constrain the variability of how work is actually performed through documenting process and communicating such expectations to employees. Verify on a regular or random basis that the word is actually performed in the way required. Along with good settings, getting employees to help define and improve process is a powerful opportunity for engagement.
Work Place Incentive
Determine what motivates your employees in particular and set up formal and informal structures for regarding employee that behave in the way required. Rewards may consist of a mix of internal rewards such as challenging assignment and external regards, such as higher compensation and peer recognition.
Supervisor Support
Act as advocates for employees gathering and distributing the resources needed by them in order for them to be able to do a good job. Immediate supervisors and managers need to display the inter-personal skills required to engage employees and enhance their self-confidence. This includes providing positive encouragement for job well done.
Mentoring/Coaching
Make available to employees skilled and respected people to help them perform better in their current role and to assist develop further into a future role mentor and coaches maybe internal to an organization or external, either way, they will need to possess the necessary facilitation skills to assist employee apply existing skills and develop new skills.
Resource Availability
The vast majority of employees takes pride in their work and tries and tries hard to do a good job, make sure that individual work load and organization systems and process do not hinder employees from applying established skills from practicing newly learned skills. Adequate time and materials resources need to be available to enable them to perform to the best of their ability. Make their work easier and help minimize error rates and customer dissatisfaction by supplying job aids. These can include templates, guides modes and checklist.
Based on the finding obtained as a result of the data gather, it has been seen that performance of employees is still being confronted with problems. This problem identify are:
Negligence on the part of employees to use the right attitude toward their job
Short all on the part of the organization managers in evaluating performance level of employee
Lack of proper co-operation between the organization’s management and the employee
Lack of recognition by the organization management on importance of employees
Poor information system between the employee and employees. It must be noted that there is need to know and check employer’s attitude to fit into their job better performance and outcome which is return determines the success or failure of the organization
Recommendation
The purpose of this paper work is to search for a better way of doing something to attain result at minimum cost. In view of this the researchers recommend the followings:
Quality should be exhibited in the recruitment and selection process in the organization
There shall be created ways of improving the wellbeing of the employee to enhance their performance
Employees job should be evaluated to make them perform well
Attitudes of the employee must be checked to see it fits into the kind of jobs they do
Employees should be encouraged to use their positive attitude to influence their performance
Organizational management should know their employees who plays vital role to the success of the organization
For employee to operate successfully, effectively and efficiently, the organization should recognize the relevance of employee attitude in other to avoid wrong attitude which produces low productivity
There should be good link and channel of communication between employees and organization to bring out the best attitude of the employees
Employee should be given opportunity to participate in decision making
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