Boost employee performance through organisational justice

 Nowadays, when struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, maximum employee contribution with minimum supervision and voluntary commitment is needed as many business firms face many challenges. Hence, ensuring organisational justice is one of the best ways to boost employee performance while managing business results

The current corporate environment is far more uncertain and complex than it has ever been. The business environment has become more uncertain and complex after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

COVID-19 becomes an eye-opener to think differently as organisations and individuals. It shows the requirement of business sustainability and uncertainty. Therefore, this is the time to handle employees and drive them towards business results by using different techniques while getting employees involved energetically. 

The uncertainty and complexity in organisations demand more from the employees to perform beyond their duties to achieve the organisational goals in the shortest time. Organisational employees must therefore exhibit discretionary behaviours to attain organisational goals in the quickest period possible. Employees are asked to go above and beyond their normal activities and responsibilities to achieve organisational goals in a short time (Chiang & Hsieh, 2012).

Similarly, enhancing employee performance helps to minimise the complexity and stress of the business and its’ success. Organisations feel that their employees are the most significant factor in increasing organisational effectiveness and productivity. To achieve their goals and objectives, organisations seek productive and talented staff members. Organisations may not succeed if not receive enough commitment and support (Rad & Yarmohammadian, 2006). 

In addition to that, having an excellent working environment helps enhance employee performance, employee motivation, and productivity (Sharma et al., 2016). Organisational performance mostly depends on employee performance. Therefore, when having a requirement to boost employee performance, it is necessary to identify elements of employee performance and enhance them.

Organisational justice is a crucial concept since it impacts individual, team, and organisational outcomes. Organisational justice has been identified as a critical variable in boosting the performance of an organisation’s employees. Because various studies have demonstrated that when employees are not treated fairly, their output suffers as a natural response to the unfair treatment. The organisations can expect workers’ extreme commitment and over responsibilities while ensuring organisational justice in the workplace. 

Research has shown that organisational justice has been connected to beneficial outcomes like trust, employee performance and satisfaction, organisational commitment, and organisational citisenship behaviour (Colquitt et al., 2013). Employees’ perceptions of their superiors’ treatment as fair or unfair are highlighted in organisational justice (Greenberg, 1987). 

When employees are confident that they will be treated fairly at work, they desire to perform higher and go above and beyond their job descriptions. Fair treatment encourages job motivation and improves workplace performance.

On the other hand, modern managers offer equitable job opportunities, appropriate labour standards, establishing a merit system, and assuring justice procedures at work. According to Rupp et al. (2017), in a recent study of organisational justice, fair treatment functions as a glue that drives employees to work together to achieve the organisation’s goals. As a result, treating all employees fairly at all levels raises employee motivation to work diligently for the firm and improves organisational integrity.

Lack of fairness in organisational practices may also lead to harmful and unethical retaliatory behaviours, and it may affect to the business results. In similarly, People who believe they have been treated unfairly or unjustly can suffer from various negative emotions, including rage, loneliness, and stress. Hence, trying to get justice and thereby restore a sense of fairness is a better way of people cope with the negative feelings of the problematic behaviour. 

As a result, in today’s competitive market, businesses are constantly attempting to preserve the best talent and get a competitive advantage over their competitors by exploiting similar things in different ways. Henceforth, it is obvious that fairness plays an important role in building a competitive advantage in organisational processes.

Organisational justice can be categorised into three dimensions: distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice. Organisational justice explains who gets what as distributive justice, how goods are given as procedural justice, and how people are treated interpersonally as interactional justice.

The fair distribution of resources among employees of an organisation is the focus of distributive justice. Distributive justice occurs when employees believe that outcomes (rewards, recognition and pay) are equitable (Colquitt et al., 2013). These consequences can be measurable, like pay, or intangible, like pleasant comments. Organ (1988) stated that distributive justice relates to status, seniority, production, effort, needs, and payment determination. The expert suggested three rules of distribution to enhance organisational justice in the workplace. These rules are justice, equity and needs, which can also be seen as dimensions of distributive justice. 

The perception of justice in the decision-making process is known as procedural justice. This type of justice is founded on the belief that the reasons for the management’s decisions are justifiable. The concept of procedural justice is based on an individual’s judgment of the correctness or incorrectness of procedures and methods used in making decisions that affect employees. Employee promotions, performance evaluations, rewards, and sharing other organisational opportunities are some of examples of these procedures. 

The criteria used to make judgments on organisational practices are also related to this type of justice. The criterion for how employees interact with one another at work is called interactional fairness. This encompasses how managers treat their employees and how co-workers and colleagues engage with one another.

Employees should feel that their organisations are looking after them by giving more attention. Employees that feel confident with their current employer will provide their best effort, which may go above and beyond their given obligations. Employee conduct and performance are critical to a company’s success. Therefore, organisational justice plays a crucial role in getting employees’ maximum output. 

Ensuring organisational justice is not costly, and it is a strategy that helps connect employees psychologically and physically in many ways. Organisations, whether large or small, may achieve a competitive advantage by leveraging their employees’ expertise, skills, and integrated knowledge in their daily operations. In today’s world, not just exchanging knowledge but also putting it into practice is the norm. 

Furthermore, companies are acting as “knowledge-integrating institutions.” Therefore, adding new techniques to face challenges is also very important for business success. Enhancing the organisational justice is a novel concept which helps to boost both employee performance and business results.  

The organisation is managed and built by its employees. Organisations do not exist without people. Many organisations have successfully retained talent in the company thanks to the growth of human resources and the care for employees, resulting in increased productivity, a lower number of employees leaving, and lower training expenses for new employees. Organisational justice will help to retain the best talent as well as it motivates employees. Business challenges continue in obtaining justice within the organisation and employee job happiness and strong work performance. 

It is proved that if an employee feels that the employer is fairly treated, the employee also positively treats the employer. Especially, the organisations are expecting an extra contribution from employees. But these additional responsibilities necessitate increased desire and commitment from individuals to their businesses. 

If an organisation is to succeed, each member of its team must play a constructive role. Management aims to ensure that organisational justice prevails, that jobs are dispersed evenly, and that benefits, and rewards are distributed equally. Rules are applied fairly, professionalism must be practiced, and employees’ input is respected and acknowledged. 

Nowadays, when struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, maximum employee contribution with minimum supervision and voluntary commitment is needed as many business firms face many challenges. Hence, ensuring organisational justice is one of the best ways to boost employee performance while managing business results.

[The writer, MHRM, PgD. in HRM, BSc (Business Mgt.) Special, Chartered Member of CIPM, PMHRP, AMITD (SL), can be reached via [email protected]]