Dr. Sandeep K. Krishnan, Associate Director, People Business, India
My doctoral dissertation on “Intention to quit of Indian IT professionals” focused on an interesting question – “Why people think of quitting”. The research focused on more than 1000 employees across 14 organizations in the Indian IT industry focusing on software engineers. During the research, I also interviewed more than 100 HR managers, CEOs, and line managers. As it would be of anybody’s guess, the research showed that managers play a great role in an employee thinking of quitting. It influenced most of the decisions that an employee made related to her continuance in the organization.
So the question is why so much importance to a manager when we have these great organizations that spend a lot on their employee development and careers. It would be also irrational for employees to quit great organizations due to one particular supervisor or manager. The research show interesting relationships. Data analysis showed that employees saw the organizations through a lens. All the key factors that are related to commitment and job satisfaction were filtered through this lens. Study showed that this lens is the manager.
The key factors related to an employee commitment and job satisfaction were influenced by his/her perceptions of manager support. Some of the most important ones were:
- Chances of career advancement or promotion is understood by the messaging from the manager
- Pay raises and bonuses are perceived to be decisions of the manager
- While organizations might have great policies, employees felt that at the end of the day, policy decisions are made by managers
- Two of the most important aspects related to fairness in the organization – “distributive and procedural justice”- how rewards and punishments are distributed and the policy behind the same are also perceived to influenced by the manager
- The psychological contract – the emotional contract by the employee and manager is influenced by how the employee perceives the manager is supporting her in the organization.
For organizations, this study brings out three major action points, 1- Your managers are not just managing task at hand, they very much form the universe that the employees operates in, 2- It important to do customized manager action planning if you wish to make changes to life of employees, 3- organizations need to use multiple communication channels to ensure that employees see the real intent of the organization beyond what an individual manager is implementing on the ground.
