The -pricrocity between the individual and the organization allows for organizational balance. Man-organization integration necessarily and implicitly entails reciprocal correspondence based on contracts and mutual interests.
The employment contract
In relation to the employment contract, it is important to distinguish two aspects:
- The formal contract. It is the contract generally expressed in writing, which is mainly based on the labor standards in force in the country and in which the State authority frequently intervenes. It refers to the economic conditions, benefits, functions to perform, position, category, hours, etc. The psychological contract. It is something implicit that occurs when a person joins an organization and where the organization and the individual hope to win with the new relationship.
Importance of the psychological contract
When a person joins an organization, after a long process of recruitment and selection of personnel, the company must be concerned with creating conditions that allow the new worker to function to the maximum of their potential, in order to generate greater productivity and contribute to the achievement of organizational objectives.
On the other hand, the development possibilities of the worker must be provided for the achievement of his expectations and their realization (opportunity for promotions, adequate working hours, benefits, security, assuming greater responsibilities and therefore better economic conditions, etc.). This situation requires more than just a formal contract, a psychological contract between the individual and the organization is urgent.
This psychological contract refers to the reciprocal expectation of the individual and the organization, which extends beyond any formal employment contract that establishes the work to be done and the reward to receive. Although there is no formal agreement or clearly stated thing, the psychological contract is a tacit agreement between individual and organization, in the sense that a wide variety of rights, privileges and obligations, enshrined by customs, will be respected and observed by both parties..
The psychological contract is an important element in any employment relationship and influences the behavior of the parties. A contract is a kind of agreement or expectation that people maintain with themselves and with others. Basically, each person represents their own contracts, which govern both interpersonal relationships and relationships that the person maintains with herself (intrapersonal relationships). A common source of difficulties in interpersonal relationships is the lack of explicit and clear agreements. People don't always say explicitly and openly what they want and need.
The notion of a psychological contract implies the existence of a set of reciprocal expectations, not written anywhere. Many of the expectations are implicit and have a lot to do with the person's sense of dignity and importance. We all hope that the organization treats us as human beings, that it gives us the opportunity to grow and learn more. Much of the problems that lead to job unrest, strikes and desertion have a lot to do with blatant breaches of the psychological contract.
The psychological interaction between employee and organization is a process of reciprocity: The organization does certain things for the worker and for the worker, it remunerates it, gives it security and status; reciprocally, the employee responds by working and performing their tasks. The organization expects the employee to obey her authority and, in turn, the employee expects the organization to behave correctly with her and to act fairly. The organization reinforces their expectation through certain attempts to influence people or limit their participation. The two parts of the interaction are guided by guidelines that define what is right and fair and what is not.
The psychological contract changes over time as the needs of the organization and those of the individual change. What a worker expects from his job at age 25 can be completely different from what that same employee expects at 50. In the same way, what the organization expects of a person during accelerated periods of growth, can be completely different from what that same organization expects when it reaches a certain stability or when it is suffering an economic setback.
If the organization fulfills the formal contract only, but not the psychological one, workers tend to have low performance and less job satisfaction since they do not meet their intrinsic expectations. On the contrary, if these are fulfilled both economically and psychologically, the workers feel satisfied, remain in the organization and have a high level of performance.
As needs and external forces change, expectations also change, turning the psychological contract into a dynamic contract that must be constantly negotiated. The psychological contract is a powerful determinant of the behavior of organizations, even though it is not written anywhere.
Mutual interests
The company is a group of people who are looking for a goal. People consider the workplace as a means to achieve their goals and, at the same time, companies need people to help them achieve their business goals. If these mutual interests do not exist, there is no point in trying to gather a group and promote cooperation among its members, because there is no common basis.
Mutual interest generates superior goals that integrate the efforts and resources of individuals and organizations. Everyone is encouraged to face business problems rather than face one another.
Mutual interest involves the exchange of resources and is developed through psychological contracts between men and the system, between men and groups, and between systems and subsystems, in which the feeling of reciprocity prevails; each evaluates what they are offering and what they are receiving in return. In this exchange of resources, if the feeling of reciprocity disappears or decreases, a modification occurs within the system.
The fundamental objective of any organization within a society is to meet its own needs and, at the same time, meet the needs of society through the production of goods or services, for which it receives financial compensation.
Satisfactions / Costs = 1
People form or connect with an organization because they expect their participation to meet some personal needs. To obtain these satisfactions, people are willing to incur certain costs or to make personal investments (training, efforts, change of attitudes, etc.) in the organization, since they expect that the satisfaction of their personal needs will be greater than the costs, and They evaluate the degree of satisfaction achieved and the costs, through their value systems.
There is always an exchange relationship between individuals and the organization. The means by which individual goals are met determines their perception of the relationship, which can be seen as satisfying by people who perceive that their rewards meet their expectations. The individual enters the organization when she expects that her satisfaction is greater than personal efforts. If you believe that personal efforts outweigh the satisfactions you obtain, you will be willing to leave the organization, if possible.
At the same time, the organization expects each individual's contribution to outweigh the costs of having people in the organization. In other words, the organization expects individuals to contribute more than it provides.
K. Davis synthesizes mutual interest in the following proposition:
"Organizations need people and they also need organizations."
Conflict between individual and organizational goals
Organizational and individual goals are not always the same.
In practice it is found that:
"Man seeks maximum pleasure with minimum effort" (Adam Smith)
In other words, workers try to make better profits from the company without their contribution being important. On the other hand, many employers exploit their workers for greater profit.
To the extent that organizations are well managed, they survive or grow; As they grow, they require more people to carry out the activities to fulfill their objectives, and these people, when joining organizations, do not always do so with the interests of the company in mind, but basically pursue individual objectives.
This gradually moves the organizational objectives away from the individual objectives of the new participants, thus generating a variety of isolated and complex behaviors and interests between the individual and the organization.
While it is true that organizations need people to meet their goals and people need organizations to meet their needs; that is to say, both are needed, in the practical aspect and in an almost natural way, each one of them try to get advantages over the other. This situation generates greater complexity in the organization-people relationship.
To chart paths for truly effective individual-organization integration, most of the responsibility rests with the decision of senior management. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty that the exercise of the managerial task entails, Toffler anticipates that it will become quite complicated in the future. The manager's behavior will have to simultaneously satisfy several objectives. Within them, you should improve your ability to listen to different people and reconcile interests.
