Strategies For Fostering Positive Job Attitudes

The link between employee attitudes and job performance has been described as the “Holy Grail” of organizational psychology (Landy, 1989). On one hand, positive employee attitudes can lead to exceptional job performance, elevated teamwork, and the achievement of organizational goals. On the other hand, negative employee attitudes can detract from job performance, poison team morale, and limit organizational effectiveness.

For the first Discussion this week, you considered factors that affect employee attitudes. In this Discussion, you will build on your learning and consider how employee attitudes impact team and organizational effectiveness and what I/O psychology practitioners can do to improve negative employee attitudes.

Landy, F. J. (1989). Psychology of work behavior (4th ed.). Belmont, CA, US: Thomson Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review this week’s Learning Resources. Pay particular attention to how attitudes, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee engagement, job involvement, and organizational citizenship, impact individual and organizational outcomes. Also, consider the roles of perceptions, emotions, and stress on employee attitudes and organizational outcomes.
• Reflect on a situation in which your own attitude has impacted team and/or organizational effectiveness and the factors that might have exacerbated the situation.
• Search Walden’s library to identify peer-reviewed articles on how to improve negative employee job attitudes. Based on the articles you find and the Learning Resources this week, consider strategies that you would implement to improve negative employee attitudes.

By Day 5

Post a response to the following:

Identify a time when you have been aware of how your attitude in the workplace has impacted the overall effectiveness of the team or organization. Describe the conditions and factors that impacted this situation, such as interpersonal perceptions, emotions, and stress. Using this week’s Learning Resources and additional resources that you found, discuss how an I/O psychology consultant or coach might implement training or another strategy to address and improve negative employee job attitudes and organizational effectiveness.