Job satisfaction and organizational commitment are critical for employee motivation and high level of performance. This paper discusses how these elements apply at Acuity. Motivational and performance management principles are also applied to evaluate the company as a potential employer.
Job satisfaction is defined as “A pleasurable or positive emotional state, resulting from the perception of one’s job as fulfilling or allowing the fulfillment of one’s important job values, providing these values are compatible with one’s physical and psychological needs” (Suma & Lesha, 2013, page 43). It is the affective response that an employee has toward their job. In order words, job satisfaction reflects how happy and satisfied an employee is with their job. This can either be global satisfaction as in how the employee feels about the entire job, or facet satisfaction referring to satisfaction with some aspect of the job such as salary, responsibilities, or supervision. Pay is an important factor in determining job satisfaction. Job satisfaction leads to enhanced job performance, high motivation, positive work attitudes, as well as low burnout and turnover rates. Therefore, job satisfaction is very important for organizational success as it will lead to high productivity for the organization (Suma & Lesha, 2013).
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"Motivation and Performance Management".
Organizational commitment on the other hand, describes how strong the individual’s identification and involvement with an organisation is. It is usually characterized by three main factors: (a) strong belief and acceptance of the goals and values of the organization, (b) the willingness to put out considerable efforts towards the organization’s progress, and (c) strong desire to remain affiliated with the organisation (Suma & Lesha, 2013). Employees who are highly committed to their organisations are able to display high job performance and engage in organizational citizenship activities. Highly committed employees also tend to stay with an organization, thus, reducing turnover intentions and rates. Three groups of factors promote organizational commitment: job characteristics, personal characteristics, and work experience. Organizational commitment may be based on affective elements such as job satisfaction; it may also be based on continuance (the employee believes the costs of leaving the organisation may be more than the cost of staying on; or, it may be based on normative elements such as the employee feeling obligated to stay on with the organization. In the affective commitment, the employee wants to stay with the organisation. In the continuance commitment, the employee needs to remain with the organisation. In normative commitment, employees feel they ought to remain with the organisation (Suma & Lesha, 2013).
At Acuity Company, organizational commitment is a strong element that is related to the high performance of the company. This factor is indicated by the fact that the company has been ranked in the top five with a turnover less than 2% consecutively across the last 10 years. All three elements of organizational commitment are seen in the company: employees believe strongly in the goals of the company and participate in working to meet its goals of providing casualty and property insurance for businesses and clients in the US. Employees express a strong desire to remain affiliated with the organisation. Organizational commitment at Acuity is also affective rather than just being normative or continuance; employees consider the organisation to be generous. Over 98% of Acuity agents rate the services of the company as excellent or good. The company offers benefits such as no limits reimbursement of tuition, a healthy 401(k) plan, and no cap on paid sick days for employees on a full-time basis, fun workplace environment, training, personal challenging work, and fair promotions.
The company’s benefits package and how it treats its employees align with motivational principles. Motivation is essential for high employee performance and influences the level of effort employees expend towards meeting job objectives. Employee motivation combines a number of factors designed to elicit a level of output required by the organization. Motivational factors are either intangible or tangible. Organizational culture, monetary reward systems and effective management are tangible motivational factors. Intangible factors include elements such as opportunities for self-actualization and career advancement (Robbins, Judge, Millett & Boyle, 2013). Herzberg’s theory of motivation for instance groups motivational factors as motivators and satisfiers. Motivators are intrinsic elements such as self-actualization, task ownership, and recognition for good performance while satisfiers are extrinsic like pay, organizational policy and job security. At Acuity, both tangible (extrinsic) and intangible (intrinsic) motivational principles are applicable. The company has a very good compensation and benefits system while providing a work environment where employees feel challenged and obtain training to advance their careers. Motivational elements have the dual purpose of encouraging high employee performance and as well as attracting top performers. These motivational elements adopted by Acuity make it a very attractive potential employer.
Acuity also adopts sound performance management principles. Performance management systems involve employee development and performance appraisal. Usually, the performance management process involves performance planning based on the goals of the organisation, ongoing feedback, employee input, performance evaluation, and performance review (Pulakos, 2004). This cycle is very much evident at Acuity. Employee development and onboarding are very strong elements in the company; this is closely tied into performance appraisal. Employee feedback is strongly emphasized in the company; for instance various strategies have been put to ensure diversity inclusion in the organisation.
In conclusion, Acuity enjoys a high level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment from its employees. This has contributed to the success of the company and low turnover records. These successes are also based largely on the company’s application of good motivational and performance management principles.
