对未来的感受会影响工作满意度

职场往往给人的感觉是时不我待，只争朝夕。

每天的任务截止期限和短期目标，要优先于长期目标。今天的需求看起来比明天的计划更为紧迫。人们经常会因为眼前的一棵树而忽视整个森林。

但雇主若想提高员工的敬业度，考虑未来至关重要。

达顿商学院领导力与组织行为学教授莫瑞拉•埃尔南德斯和博士后研究员克里斯蒂安诺•L•瓜拉纳认为：“不止关注眼前，同时考虑员工未来需求与回报预期的组织，在提高工作敬业度方面更有优势。”

为了深入了解时间与员工敬业度之间的关系，埃尔南德斯和瓜拉纳最近对众多科技公司的数百名员工进行了调查。根据对超过200名受访者的调查结果，他们发现，工作敬业度不仅会受到员工当前情况的影响，也会受到其对未来的期望的影响。

埃尔南德斯与瓜拉纳特别研究了影响工作敬业度的三个因素：心理意义、心理可获得性和心理安全。在心理意义方面，他们发现，如果员工不仅认为他们目前的投入能够带来回报，而且相信未来的努力可以带来更多回报，员工的敬业度会显著提高。

未来预期对心理可获得性同样重要，或者说，员工会感觉他们拥有完成一项任务的物质和情感资源。在员工相信他们可以获得迎接未来挑战的时间、财力和人力的情况下，可获得性可以带来最高的敬业度。

埃尔南德斯与瓜拉纳表示：“尽管目前的经历是预测工作敬业度的一个重要指标，但在一名员工漫长的职业生涯当中，这只是一段小插曲而已。”

心理安全是源于当前的一个敬业度因素。对此一个可行的解释是，心理安全，也就是即便犯错也不会导致失业或信誉受损的感觉，与迫在眉睫的生存努力有关，这也使得当前的情况比未经证实的未来可能性更加重要。

对于雇主如何实际运用这些调查结果，埃尔南德斯提出了几条建议：

首先，在招聘、培养和提拔人才时，雇主必须始终将未来记在心中。在初期，招聘者应该提供对职位空缺的明确说明，帮助求职者从短期和长期两个方面评估公司是否合适。

其次，在聘用员工之后，埃尔南德斯建议，确立更加整体性的培训思路，将个人目前和未来的职位预期考虑在内。虽然新人刚入行时可能接受一份初级工作，但了解其终极志向对公司或许会有所帮助。这样不仅可以节省未来的时间，还可以让员工走上正轨，最大限度开发自己的潜力，提高敬业度。

第三，员工成功加入团队，开始投入工作之后，管理者应该强调员工目前可以获得的回报，以及未来工作岗位可以提供的潜在资源。公司如果能够为员工规划出职业发展路径，可大幅提高员工敬业度，实现更高的员工保留率。毕竟，即便员工目前感觉劳累过度或被低估，只要公司承诺事情会变得更好或者他们最终必能得到升职，便可以消除员工这些糟糕的负面情绪。

埃尔南德斯还为雇主门带来了一条好消息。虽然未来和预期的情况会影响员工敬业度，但过去的情况通常不会对敬业度产生影响。即便员工对过去的奖励或认同感到失望，但他们不太可能浪费时间去反复考虑已经发生过的事情。事实上，员工更关注现在和未来的可能性。

埃尔南德斯与瓜拉纳说道：“员工并不会纠结于过去的情况，相反，工作给员工带来的意义，会让他们更专注于当前和未来的职位。”

另外值得注意的是，组织认同，或者员工对一家公司的归属感，其重要性通常会超过其他影响工作敬业度的因素。埃尔南德斯与瓜拉纳表示：“如果一个人认同公司，他或她会关注自己与其他团队成员有哪些共同之处。他们会接受公司的价值观，并亲自践行他们共同的信仰。”

反之，如果公司的组织认同度过低，则其他三个因素会变得更加重要。

总而言之，埃尔南德斯与瓜拉纳提醒雇主和研究人员，在探讨工作敬业度的时候，不要忘记时间这个因素。因为没有比现在更好的时间——有时候，未来除外。（财富中文网）

达顿商学院教授莫瑞拉•埃尔南德斯与博士后研究员克里斯蒂安诺•瓜拉纳共同在《管理杂志》（Journal of Management）上发表了“关于工作就业度的时间复杂性的探讨”（An Examination of the Temporal Intricacies of Job Engagement）一文。

译者:刘进龙/汪皓

In the workplace, it can often feel like there is no time but the present.

Daily deadlines and short-term goals can take precedence over longer term objectives. The demands of today can seem more pressing than the plans for tomorrow. The size and shape of the forest can be lost behind the trees directly ahead.

But for employers looking to increase engagement, it is important to think about the future.

“Organizations that attend to not only the current but also the expected future needs and rewards of their employees will be well positioned to build job engagement,” said Morela Hernandez, a Darden professor of leadership and organizational behavior, and Cristiano L. Guarana, a postdoctoral research associate at Darden.

Looking to better understand the relationship between time and engagement, Hernandez and Guarana recently surveyed hundreds of employees at a large diversified technology company. Based on results from more than 200 respondents, they found job engagement is not only heavily influenced by a worker’s current circumstances, but also by his or her expectations for the future.

In particular, Hernandez and Guarana looked at three factors that drive job engagement: psychological meaningfulness, availability and safety. In terms of meaningfulness, they noted greater job engagement occurred when employees not only believed their current efforts would create a sense of return, but also that their future labors would lead to increased rewards later on.

Forward-looking expectations were also important to psychological availability, or workers feeling they had the physical and emotional resources to complete a task. Availability led to the greatest engagement when employees felt confident they would have the time, funding and personnel to take on a future challenge.

“Current experiences, although important and significant predictors of job engagement, are episodes within the larger scope of an employee’s career,” Hernandez and Guarana said.

Psychological safety was the one engagement factor that remained firmly rooted in the present. One possible explanation for this is that safety — the feeling that you won’t lose your job or reputation if you make a mistake — is linked to imminent survival efforts, making current circumstances far more important than unproven possibilities.

As for how employers can make practical use of these findings, Hernandez has a few tips:

First, employers should keep the future in mind in all stages of hiring, developing and promoting talent. Early on, recruiters should provide a clear job description of an open position to help job seekers evaluate whether the company will be a good fit, both in the near term and the long term.

Second, once an employee is hired, Hernandez recommends developing a more holistic perspective to training that takes into consideration a person’s current and future role expectations. Though a new hire might take an entry level position to get a foot in the door, it might be useful to know where that person’s ultimate ambitions lie. This can save time later on and put a worker on a track toward maximizing his or her potential and engagement.

Third, after an employee has been fully brought on board and begun working, managers should highlight both current rewards and the potential resources offered in future roles. Companies that are able to map out how a worker can move forward in his or her career are likely to see higher engagement and also possibly higher retention. After all, even if an employee feels overworked or underappreciated at present, the promise that things will get better or that a promotion is eventually in store could smooth over the worst of those negative feelings.

Hernandez does have a bit of good news for employers. While present and anticipated conditions can affect an employee’s engagement, past circumstances generally do not. Even if an employee has suffered disappointments in the past with regards to rewards or recognition, he or she probably isn’t wasting time ruminating on what has been. Instead, the employee is more focused on what is and what could be.

“Rather than dwelling on past circumstances, the meaningfulness individuals experience at work tends to drive their attention toward current and future job roles,” Hernandez and Guarana said.

Also important to note is that organizational identification — an employee’s sense of belonging within a company — can often trump the other factors that drive job engagement. “When individuals identify with their organizations, they pay attention to what they have in common with other organizational members,” Hernandez and Guarana said. “They internalize the organization’s values and personally embody its shared beliefs.”

On the flipside, for companies where organizational identification is low, the other three factors take on even greater importance.

All in all, Hernandez and Guarana caution employers and researchers not to forget about time when exploring the issue of job engagement. Because there is no time like the present — except, sometimes, the future.

Darden Professor Morela Hernandez and postdoctoral Research Associate Cristiano Guarana co-authored “An Examination of the Temporal Intricacies of Job Engagement,” published in theJournal of Management.