Research Articles

Building Lasting Employee Commitment

Rebecca Westphal
Communication and Curriculum Manager
HRworkbench Pty ltd


There is an old proverb, "ask and you shall receive". These days, the proverb might be more aptly changed to, "give and you shall receive". In today's working environment, organisations must increase their dedication to staff and levels of leadership if they wish to achieve employee commitment.

Bob Selden, Director of the National Learning Institute says, "When I started my first job way back in the last century, 'commitment' was not an issue - one became 'committed' the moment one signed on the dotted line.

"In those days, joining an organisation (particularly a large one) was seen as a career/life move. However, with the deregulation movement (of everything!) of the 80s and now the move to globalisation, full time employment is transitory. The result is that employee commitment is not bought with a salary (nor is it expected), but rather earned through the actions of the people who lead the organisation."

For employees, commitment is based on a number of factors*:

  • Sufficiency of pay, benefits and rewards
  • Family oriented policies and actions
  • Quality of the supervisory relationship
  • Favourable developmental training and experiences
  • Promotions
  • Clearly stated guidelines defining appropriate work behaviour and job demands
  • Participation in goal setting
  • Receipt of performance feedback
  • Supportive communications with immediate supervisors and upper management
  • Procedural justice in performance-appraisal decisions
  • Evaluative and objective measures of performance

*(Patrick D. Lynch, Rober Eisenberger and Stephen Armeli, Perceived Organizational support: Inferior Versus Superior Performance by Wary Employees, Journal of Applied Psychology 1999 Vo. 54 No. 4 pp 467 - 483)


When these things are in place, employees are willing to work harder, perform duties beyond requirements, remain in their organisation for a longer period of time, and even have less absences from work (Patrick D. Lynch, Rober Eisenberger and Stephen Armeli, Perceived Organizational support: Inferior Versus Superior Performance by Wary Employees, Journal of Applied Psychology 1999 Vo. 54 No. 4 pp 467 - 483; Lisa Hope Pelled and Katherine R. Xin, Down and Out: An investigation of the Relationship Between mood and Employee Withdrawal Behavior, Journal of Management, 1999 Vol. 25 No. 6 pp. 875 - 895).

Bob Selden defines employee commitment simply as staff being, "continually motivated to achieve results and satisfied to see their future with the organisation over time."

The benefits of such commitment are clear. But how do organisations gain and support the commitment of its people?

In "Built to Last" (Collins & Porras; Harper 1994), Collins et al when tracking successful companies which had survived and thrived for over 100 years (and are still successful today), clearly demonstrated that, "Visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one - and not necessarily the primary one. Yes they seek profits, but they are equally guided by a core ideology.. The crucial variable is not the content of a company's ideology, but how deeply it believes its ideology and how consistently it lives, breathes and expresses it in all that it does." This last point is the responsibility of the leader and is the essence of employee commitment.

In order to ensure that company ideology remains the living breath of the organisation, it is vital to be able to measure commitment, taking on board feedback and gauging subtle organisational changes. Without measurement, an organisation cannot find the gaps in commitment and improve.

With this in mind, Bob Selden developed CHECKpoint™, the organisational climate survey that assesses and tracks employee commitment regularly over time. The team at HRworkbench packaged a simple but effective report and made the questionnaire available online.

The initial development of CHECKpoint™ was based on the work of two of the most influential social psychologists of the last 50 years - D.C. McLelland and F Hertzberg - and in particular looked at two factors:

  1. Motivating Factors - those things that provide people with real motivation at work
  2. Satisfying Factors - those things that keep people happy and satisfied at work

But this is only half the story. How do people get to be "motivated" and "satisfied" and what are the results? So, to these two factors were added:

  1. Leadership - how well the people are provided with direction, leadership, and a sense of "team"
  2. Customer Focus - how well the people are servicing and reaching customers (both external and internal)

Take a closer look at these four areas, and you'll discover that each of the employee commitment factors mentioned earlier is covered in one of these areas.

The resulting report outlines the responses for each of the questions in these four areas, specifically highlighting "alarm bell" areas that need immediate attention. The team at "the Bench" designed these alarm bells to start ringing where the average agreement rating for a question is low, but the average importance rating is high so that problem areas are easily identifiable and actionable.

HRworkbench VAR, Carlo Calleri, introduced The CHECKpoint to a mid-sized accounting practice based in Perth, Western Australia, that currently has a turnover $3.5 -$4.0 million per annum. Over the past 6-8 months, the firm had experienced great staff turnover, resulting in significant costs ($15-20K per person in recruitment, induction, and technical training), lost productivity, and client disruption.

"My approach to was to undertake an organisational Health Check," says Carlo. "This Health Check used two separate data gathering techniques:

  • Interviews to be conducted with the leadership team of the practice
  • Survey the staff as to what they felt about working at the practice."

Carlo was able to use an integrated approach, using the CHECKpoint as a starting point to on-sell his own consulting work in the form of one-on-one interviews with each of the questionnaire participants. He was delighted to find that the results of the questionnaire, quantitative data, were directly mirrored in the results of his interviews, qualitative data; strengthening the validity of his consulting.

Because the report provides responses not only on how the organisation scores on each of the 25 factors, but also how important these factors are to respondents, and then provides suggestions for what do next, Consultants are given a helpful guide to transform results into action.

Carlo says, "It was very easy to interpret the results and work with the client to put some plans in place to start addressing issues contained in the report."

He also notes, "The partners of the firm found the survey very easy to read, navigate, and discuss. "

The advantage of this kind of comprehensive reporting is that the Consultant or HR Professional using the CHECKpoint doesn't have to be an organisational health expert.

"Most consultants do not conduct organisational health surveys. When an existing client wants a survey, they are therefore likely to bypass the regular consultant to go to a specialist (or at best ask for a referral). With CHECKpoint in their kit bag, every consultant now has the ability to provide their client with an additional service and not miss out on key business," says Bob Selden.

It's a key business that Consultants can't afford not to include in their repertoires, and it's important that they have a survey that differentiates them from the market.

The first major point of difference of the CHECKpoint is the cost. Most organisational health surveys carried out by specialists have over 100 questions that have to be analysed by the Consultant before they can produce a report - so, they are expensive and time consuming. This means that they are often only carried out every two-three years.

The CHECKpoint only has 25 questions that can be answered in 10 minutes, producing an instantaneous report. The low cost and ease of completion means that the CHECKpoint can be carried out regularly; best practice suggests quarterly.

The combination of the regular pulse, the prioritisation of factors, and action points means that the CHECKpoint allows organisations to actually do something with their results.

Carlo Calleri, and his accounting practice client, were able to use the CHECKpoint to identify:

  • What factors were important to the Organisation's staff that would keep them motivated whilst working at the Organisation
  • Assess whether the direction being taken by the firm was going to address those items that were of concern to the staff
  • How many staff were neither satisfied or dissatisfied with the working environment at the Organisation. This proved to be one of the most important items highlighted by the survey because it showed that much of the staff were sitting on the fence. Carlo could then use his expertise to help build strategies to bring those "swinging voters" to the positive side of the fence!

But the story doesn't stop there. Bob Selden and HRworkbench recognise the importance of the human factor in any kind of health survey, so the reports often suggest implementing group facilitating processes, allowing Consultants to on-sell their specific services.

Carlo Calleri tells us that he, "recently conducted a workshop with the partners where the Survey results were used as the basis of 2005 business planning."

This is the kind of dedication organisations need to show to their staff if they wish to build employee commitment that will last. And when they do, they surely will receive.

Visit the CHECKpoint™ product page to see how it can help you achieve a happy, and therefore motivated, workplace.