December 1, 2005
Organizational and Employee Status Crucial to Identified Workplace
by Sandie Taylor

 A recent national survey revealed that eight of the top 10 challenges facing CEOs pertain to attracting, retaining and managing talent. “People are increasingly seeing themselves as free agents,” said Caroline Bartel, assistant professor in the Department of Management at the McCombs School of Business. According to her research, what people do is often more important than where they do it. This makes it incredibly difficult for companies to retain talented people.

In her talk for the Nov. 15 Faculty Research Presentation Series, Bartel explained that much of a company’s success in retaining employees is now based on how strongly workers identify with their organization.

Identification, she said, is a situation where employees use the company to help define who they are as individuals. “People who identify strongly with a company tend to share the values, beliefs and goals of the company,” Bartel added. And these employees are more likely to stick around longer than those who don’t have this same connection to the company.

To maintain that employee-company identification, Bartel said employees need to believe that the corporation itself is of high status and that they have also individually reached a certain status within the organization.

“People identify more strongly with socially desirable organizations,” she said. “This is most likely driven by a basic need all individuals have for self-esteem.” For example, if the company is doing a good deed or has a positive public image, some employees see that as a reflection on themselves as well.

Bartel’s research looked into the myriad ways organizations gain or lose status in the eyes of employees. She examined the effect four community outreach projects had on 250 Pillsbury Co. employee volunteers and found that the experience had status-enhancing effects for the company. The experience led employees to see favorable comparisons between their own company and the practices and policies of other organizations, making Pillsbury more desirable to them.

Allowing people to work outside of their normal environment and experience “boundary-spanning roles,”—such as volunteering for a non-profit or being encouraged to participate in a corporate-sponsored community event—was a powerful way for companies to help strengthen their status or image in the minds of their employees.

“What’s different about boundary-spanning roles is that you’re out there learning about other organizations and seeing the differences,” she said. “This is more likely to be meaningful to you and have more impact on you.”

In Bartel’s second field study of 381 recent hires at a global organization that invents and manufactures information technologies, she found that membership status—that is, employees feeling they are respected and accepted in the company—leads to both stronger identification with the company and a better work ethic.

Further, Bartel’s study showed that many employees experienced what they perceived as low membership status at the company because they worked from home and in other remote locales. The lack of daily camaraderie and participation in office routines and practices made them feel like outsiders amongst their peers who still worked at the office.

Managers in this company remedied the situation by inviting employees in on conference calls or to visit the department just to hang out. These gestures demonstrated that although the employees didn’t work on-site in the office, they were still respected and accepted by the company.

In any situation where employees gain approval from managers or feel like an integral part of the organization, those workers will likely also feel better about themselves and their current career choices.

“Whether people believe that the corporation itself is of high status or that they have reached a certain status within the organization, those with increased identification with organization put forth more effort on the job and were more cooperative,” she noted. “They were more likely to reciprocate and give back.”

And according to Bartel, social status is a great tool for companies to leverage. This is especially true for employees’ membership status because unlike other resources, it is an unlimited resource in organizations. “In theory, every member can have high status,” she said.
 

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