Selasa, 01 Mei 2012

Time to move on? Staying in a job you hate is bad for you AND your employer

Time to move on? Staying in a job you hate is bad for you AND your employer

  • Employees who stay on out of 'loyalty' or fear experience exhaustion
  • Can cause illness and 'burnout'
  • Companies should make effort to offer training and 'move' employees to counter 'drained' feeling

By Rob Waugh

PUBLISHED: 09:06 EST, 1 May 2012 | UPDATED: 09:06 EST, 1 May 2012

Many people stay in jobs they hate, because of loyalty or fear - but a new study John Molson School of Business Study suggests they are causing harm both to themselves, and their companies

Many people stay in jobs they hate, because of loyalty or fear - but a new study John Molson School of Business Study suggests they are causing harm both to themselves, and their companies

Many people stay in jobs they hate, because of misguided loyalty or fear - but a new study suggests they are causing harm both to themselves, and their companies.

People who stay on out of misguided loyalty experience exhaustion, then burn out - and often leave the company without warning.

Researchers based their findings on a study of 260 workers from a variety of industries.

The 'drained' physical and mental state of workers who stay on out of loyalty means they can leave abruptly - leaving their companies with the problem of finding new staff without warning.

‘Employees often stay with their organization because they feel that they have no other option,' says Alexandra Panaccio, an assistant professor in the Department of Management at Concordia's John Molson School of Business., ‘Then they are more likely to experience emotional exhaustion. This feeling, in turn, may lead them to leave the organization.

Instead, the researchers suggest, companies should focus on training and moving staff within an organisation so that fewer of their staff are staying on simply because they 'feel they should'.

Published in the journal Human Relations, the study found that people who stay in their organizations because they feel an obligation towards their employer are more likely to experience burnout.

The same applies when employees stay because they don't perceive employment alternatives outside their organization.

‘Our study examined whether some forms of commitment to an organization could have detrimental effects, such as emotional exhaustion and, eventually, turnover,’ says co-author

'The implication is that employers should try to minimize this 'lack of alternatives' type of commitment among employees by developing their competencies, thus increasing their feeling of mobility and, paradoxically, contributing to them wanting to stay with the organization.’

Panaccio and her colleagues surveyed 260 workers from various industries, including information technology, health services, engineering and architecture. Participants were, on average, 34 years old; 33 per cent held managerial positions, while 50 per cent worked in the public sector.

The research team measured various types of organizational commitments, such as whether emplo yees identified with a company's goals and values and whether they felt an obligation to stay.

‘It may be that, in the absence of an emotional bond with the organization, commitment based on obligation is experienced as a kind of indebtedness - a loss of autonomy that is emotionally draining over time,’ says Panaccio.


 

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I don't stay on my job out of loyalty, I stay because my children need feeding!! My bosses are useless and moral is very low, but of course if you say anything youre just a moaner and get accused of 'bringing the team sprit down'.

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I think in fairness, most people stuck in jobs they hate do it because there are no jobs our there, and we have to put up with what we can get. I don't think it's a case of loyalty!

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Sorry but when there are only very few jobs and the majority are equally dire, I do not see any easy answers here. One hectoring manager once gave an accounts team I worked in a rather threatening lecture about motivation (or rather our perceived lack of it). When he finally stated that anyone who didn't want to work there should be "helped" to move on nobody dared ask exactly what he meant by "helped." I suspect it was an Orwellian double-speak term, much as the current government talk about "helping" the unemployed into work. What some employers ( I mean the larger ones who really could do more) are doing is simply adding to a climate of fear and offering very little in the way of alternatives.

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When I went to collage one of the first things my tutor said to me. If you cannot get up for work in the morning change your job. I have used this for most of my working life having moved around the country including Scotland. I left my last full time job because one of the staff started moaning about everything as soon as I started work in the morning, after a time it started to drag me down also so I left. Nothing is worth making you ill over including a company pension.

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I work with different people week to week, it's very stressful to be on with someone you don't like or have no respect for.

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Should be noted that these people are awful to work with and can destroy a team with their attitude. I just wish several of my colleagues would move on too.

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People stay in jobs they hate because there is nothing else out there at the moment so they don't have another option.

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