EMPLOYEE ORIENTATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT (A STUDY OF SELECTED BANKS IN EKET, AKWA IBOM STATE).
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Employee orientation is an important, but sometimes neglected, part of the hiring process. It is designed both to reduce first day jitters and to bring newly hired employees into the fold by familiarizing them with their jobs both general and specific company operations policies, procedures, and products. When conducted properly, orientation sessions can instill positive attitudes about the organization, ensure the quicker acclimation of new employee to their jobs, reduce the likelihood of performance problems stemming from misunderstandings or misconceptions about company programs, policies, or operational methods, Wash, (2000). Orientation also pave way for better communication between employees and their supervisors, and also promote company loyalty.
Effective orientation not only promotes productivity but fosters personnel and professional development, promoting employee morale and organizational commitment (Hasniza,2009). According to Almodarresi and Hajmalek (2014), effective orientation programs form the belief that an organization is willing to invest on its employees and indicates that the organization pays attention to employees. This in a way causes employees’ encouragement, persuasion and a higher degree of their commitment to the operations of the organization. In contrast, when employees feel they lack organization support, they may develop a sense of despair and hopelessness and become less committed to the organization.
Brum, (2007) also urges out that orientation is a key human resource processes increasing a conducive environment and showing value to the employees for greater commitment out comes.
According to Mathias (1994), orientation Is the planned introduction of new employees to their jobs, their coworkers and culture of the organization. Orientation can be viewed as a special kind of training designed to help new employees to learn about their tasks, to be introduced to their co-workers and to settle in their work situation – a vital ingredient of internal corporate communication (Bennett, 2001). Employee orientation can be broadly defined as the familiarization with, and adaptation to, a new work environment. It refers to the process by which a new employee is introduced to the organization, to the work group, and to the job. Traditionally, organizations approach orientation by describing to the new employee the organization’s history, structure, fringe benefits, rules and regulations (Asare-Bediako, 2008). A more progressive approach is to view orientation as an opportunity to communicate the organization’s vision and values, shape the new employee’s values and integrate him/her into the organization’s structure (Asare-Bediako, 2008). Researchers have found that successful new employee orientation programmers help new employees become well-known or familiar with their organizational environment and help them understand and appreciate their responsibilities, (Robinson, 1998).
Orientation is the process of communicating to an employee the duties of the job and how to accomplish them (Outlaw, 1998). According to Oliseh (2005), orientation is the systematic development of the attitude, skill, and behavior pattern required by an individual in order to perform adequately a given task.
Employee orientation is a way to introduce the new employee to the polices, organizational hierarchy, organizational culture, benefits one may receive within a company and job responsibilities. It helps the organization to achieve long term relationship with the employee. Employee orientation is way to feel new joiners welcome and comfortable within an organization. Chung (2013) defines an orientation as an organization’s process of systematically planning training, either an external consultant hired by the firm or by an internal expert within the organization, with a focus to developing the employees’ knowledge, their skills and attitudes, as well as their expertise that is critically essential for them to be successful and effective at their current job and organization.
Orientation is aimed at enabling employees match the future expertise needs of the organization and management levels to help it achieve its objectives (Sila, 2014). When an employer undertakes and takes resources aside to train employees it is an indication of a high degree of commitment by the employer to the employees, and this gives the employees confidence and as a result they devote toward being a part of the organization’s success story (Ombui, Kagiri & Omoke, 2012). In addition, orientation helps employees to meet their existing job requirements or helps employees to increase their productivity (Athar & Shah, 2012). For the orientation to be focused and hence successful, it is critical that managers work in close contact with heads of departments and the Human Resources management team in order to adhere to a systematic approach in the orientation and to get desired and fruitful outcomes from it (Sadaf, Amna & Hummayoun, 2014). Garrieson (1997) stated that employee orientation looks at the following dimensions:
Initiation to task, task mastery, performance evaluation, initiation to the group among others.
Initiation to task: This is refers to taking on new tasks, to be motivated and to stay perseverant with those tasks until its complete completion even if you encounter challenges.
Task mastery: This is refers to self-efficacy and ability for a person to carry out task effectively and efficiently.
Performance Evaluation: Is a constructive process to acknowledge the performance of a non-probationary career employee. An employee's evaluation shall be sufficiently specific to inform and guide the employee in the performance of her/his duties.
Organizational commitment is viewed as the relative strength with which employees identify and involve themselves with a specific organization (Newman, Thanacoody & Hui, 2010). According to Ambar et al. (2015), Organizational commitment is the degree to which employees of an organization identify themselves with it. Organizational commitment hence relates to attachment, belief in the organizational values, and a demonstrated desire and the desire to remain at the organization even under changing conditions. Yap et al. (2010) views organizational commitment as a subjective measure that illustrates the perceptions employees hold in regard to how they identify and involve with their current employer organization, their manifested desire to remain with this organization, and their unforced willingness to put an effort degree of effort than it may necessarily be expected of them their employer. Lamba & Choudhary, (2013) identifies that organizational commitment brings results in employee’s job satisfaction, effectiveness and willingness to adhere to organizational policies and low employee turnover.
Lamba & Choudhary (2013) concur that committed employees will demonstrate the tendency to perform their job well, eventually with an ultimate improvement on the overall performance of the organization. Organizational commitment is reflective of individuals’ attitudes against organizational values and objectives. It shows a force, which bounds the individual to stay in an organization and try to achieve organizational goals with a sense of belonging (Almodarresi & Hajmalek, 2015). Organizational commitment is described as that self-instilled willingness by the employees to contribute with determination and zeal toward attainment of the organizational goals. With certainty that there is room and support from the employer to advance their skills from the employer, employees’ degree of commitment and dedication to remain with that particular organization is higher (Ismail, 2013).
Organizational commitment closely share similar elements with other aspects relating to the organization such as organizational loyalty, work group commitment, workplace supervision, job, career, and union (Bartlett, 2001). The desired level of commitment mostly emanates from the fruitful and positive interactions between an employee and the employer in an organization (Brum, 2007). Dedicated as well as committed employees to their employer have the tendency to not only accept, but also acknowledge objectives and values of the employer. Moreover, such employees demonstrate a substantial amount of effort for their employer, essentially with an aim to support and remain active in the organization (Warsame, 2015).
According to Meyer & Allens (1990), Organizational commitment can be measured by various variables such as Affective commitment, Normative commitment and Continuance commitment. Affective Commitment refers to affection for your job: Affection for your job occurs when you feel a strong emotional attachment to your organization, and to the work that you do. You'll most likely identify with the organization's goals and values, and you genuinely want to be there. Continuance Commitment refers to fear of loss: This type of commitment occurs when you weigh up the pros and cons of leaving your organization. You may feel that you need to stay at your company because the loss you'd experience by leaving it is greater than the benefit you think you might gain in a new role. Normative Commitment refers to sense of obligation to stay: This type of commitment occurs when you feel a sense of obligation to your organization, even if you're unhappy in your role, or even if you want to pursue better opportunities. You feel that you should stay with your organization, because it's the right thing to do. In today’s globalized environment, many of the organizations are facing some issues of employee retention. The main purpose of this research is to identify the relationship between employee orientation and organizational commitment and how they support each other. In other words, we can say that in the absence of proper and timely orientation, it might be possible that employees become de-motivated or dissatisfied and may want to leave that organization.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Despite the increasing effects of orientation of organizational employees by organizations, there is still limited literature on human resource development issues in developing countries according to (Debrah & Ofori 2006, 440), and increasing concerns from organizational customers towards low quality services in the banking sector.
According to Lainie Petersen (2018), it has been observed that employees who do not receive adequate orientation have difficulties in meeting performance standards. As a result, they end up learning by trial and error or by imitating co-workers of varying levels of competency and this creates negative impacts on employee morale and entire business. Organizations that do not invest in employee orientation causes its employees not to develop the skills necessary to take on supervisory positions, executive roles or highly technical tasks. As a result of this, the company ends up spending more money trying to attract outside talent, while the current workforce stagnates. Lack of proper employee orientation also results in a cloistered business that has little industry relevance. Failure to orient employees properly does not just impact individual employees, it can also create risks for the entire business. This is because some mistakes made by employees have resulted in lawsuits, fines and, in some cases charges of criminal negligence, Harvey, (2002).
Lack of organizational commitment leads to low productivity, employees turnover, poor job performance, absenteeism among others (Harvey, 2002)
The existing studies in this relation according to (Harvey 2002; Harvey, Matt & Milord 2002; Jackson 2002; Kamoche 2002; Kamoche, Debrah, Hortwiz & Muuka 2004; Kraak 2005) have taken a general Human Resource Management (HRM) focus creating a gap on issues such as the effect of employee orientation and organizational commitment. Many employees due to inadequate orientation on the part of the organization have developed a poor working attitude, absenteeism, ineptitude, redundancy and low productivity, (Harvey,2002).
The following gaps have been identified as the major cause of their poor attitude to work: Redundancy and low productivity, the lukewarm attitude of employees, ethics and code of conduct, Poor leadership qualities of the employer, (Harvey, 2002).
This study will contribute in minimizing this gap and thereby establish the basis to understanding of some aspects of organizational commitment in general and employee orientation in particular in banking sector in Eket.
1.3. Research Questions
The above problem stated raised the following research questions.
i. To what extent does employee orientation relate with organizational commitment in the Banking sector?
ii. To what extent does initiation to task relate with affective commitment in banking sector?
iii. To what extent does task mastery relate with normative commitment in banking sector?
1.4. Objectives of the Study
i. To understand the relationship between employee orientation and organizational commitment in banking sector in Eket.
ii. To understand the impact of initiation to task and affective commitment in banking sector.
iii. To understand the impact of task mastery and normative commitment in banking sector.
1.5. Hypotheses
The study formulated the following hypothesis below:
Hoi. There is no significance positive relationship between employee orientation and organizational commitment.
Hoii. There is no significance positive relationship between initiation to task and affective commitment.
Hoiii. There is no significance positive relationship between task mastery and normative commitment.
1.6. Significance of the Study
This research work based on its theoretical and practical nature would benefit managers, researcher, government and entire organization in the following ways.
1. It will help the managers in restrictive work contents and processes in order to achieve the set organizational goals.
2. It will enable managers to utilize the full potential of its workforce.
3. It will broaden the horizon of employee as regards to their commitment in the organization.
4. The study will save the company a great deal of money by reducing the turnover rate of new employee and improving attitude to work with consequent increase in productivity.
5. The study will help to fulfill an employee need for security, belonging, esteem and acceptance.
6. The study will significantly be of use to the banking sector especially the banks under study on the best training strategies to be applied in training their employees for their development, better performance, employee commitment and good service delivery.
7. In academic, the study will contribute to the contemporary debates of orientation and organizational commitment especially in the public sector and form the basis for future explanatory research.
8. The study will also improve the researcher’s academic report writing skills, which can be hopefully used in future to further the field of academic research.
9. It will also help the researcher to obtain her B. Sc
1.7 Scope of the Study
The study is primarily concerned with the employee orientation and organizational commitment. This study/project work covers some selected banks in Eket, Akwa Ibom State.
This is as a result of some constraints being mounted on the researcher such as time, attitude of respondents, distance, finances among others.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
In the midst of scarcity of resources in almost all its ramifications especially in a country like Nigeria, one cannot expect to write a project without a considerable measure of constraints. The researcher encountered the following challenges in this research work:
i. Time: Time constitutes a very important item in the writing o any project. This project was written under the pressures of other academic works and as such time was highly limited.
ii. Finance: The role of adequate finance in any project cannot be over emphasized. In the course of this work finance was another factor that affected the researcher's effort towards a better quality project.
iii. Bias: In a personal interview method as adopted by the researcher, bias could not be over-ruled, respondents answered the questions in ways they felt was favorable to them and the image of their organization.
iv. Access to information: The researcher also encounter difficulty in gathering more precise information from the selected banks due to their institution policy.
1.9 Definition of Terms
⦁ Employee orientation: This is the process of communicating to a new employee the basic background information about the organization and the job. It is refers to the process by which a new employee is introduced to the organization, polices, organizational hierarchy, organizational culture, job responsibilities and the benefits one may receive within the organization.
⦁ An Employee: An employee is a person who has agreed by contract to perform specified services for another (the employer) in exchange for a reward.
⦁ Orientation: It is broadly defined as the familiarization with, and adaptation to a new work environment.
⦁ Organizational commitment: This refers to the strength of attachment of a person to his or her organization. It is the degree to which employees of an organization identify themselves with the organization. Organizational commitment hence relates to attachment, belief and demonstrated desire and the desire to remain in the organization even under changing conditions.
⦁ Commitment: It is defined as the act of binding oneself to a course of action. A willingness to give your time and energy to something that you believe in, or a promise or a firm decision to do something.
⦁ Initiation to task: this is refers to taking on new tasks, to be motivated and to stay perseverant with those tasks until its complete completion even if you encounter challenges.
⦁ Task mastery: this is refers to self-efficacy and ability for a person to carry out task effectively and efficiently.
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