How To Motivate Employees To Go Beyond Their Jobs

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How To Motivate Employees To Go Beyond Their Jobs

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Motivating People

How to Motivate Employees to

Go Beyond Their Jobs
by Mark C. Bolino and Anthony C. Klotz

September 15, 2017

Summary. Research shows that when employees are willing to go beyond their
formal roles by helping out coworkers, volunteering to take on special assignments,
introducing new ideas and work practices, attending non-mandatory meetings,
putting in extra hours to complete... more

Every day, employees make decisions about whether they are

willing to go the extra mile in ways that contribute to their
organization’s success. These are important decisions because
research shows that when employees are willing to go beyond
their formal roles by helping out coworkers, volunteering to take
on special assignments, introducing new ideas and work
practices, attending non-mandatory meetings, putting in extra
hours to complete important projects, and so forth, their
companies are more efficient and effective. As a result, a critical
task for successful managers is to motivate their employees to
engage in these extra-role behaviors, which researchers refer to as
“citizenship behaviors.”
Although the benefits of
citizenship behavior for
organizational performance are
clear, the implications for
employees are more equivocal.
On the one hand, many
employees perform acts of
citizenship because they feel
committed to and connected to
their peers, supervisors, and
organizations. Being a good
organizational citizen can also
be personally and professionally
rewarding because it makes
work more meaningful and
Marion Barraud for HBR
invigorating and contributes to
better performance evaluations. On the other hand, some studies
have also shown that employees sometimes feel pressured to be
good organizational citizens and may only do so in order to
enhance their image. Moreover, going the extra mile can deplete
employees’ resources, contributing to stress, work-family conflict,
and citizenship fatigue. Recent research further suggests that
employees who feel pressured to engage in citizenship may start
feeling entitled to act out by engaging in deviant behaviors.
Further, while employee citizenship is often associated with
positive feelings, it can also impede employees’ ability to get their
jobs done, which can undermine their well-being.

As this work continues,

YOU AND YOUR TEAM SERIES
consensus is emerging that
Making Work More
citizenship behavior tends to
Meaningful
have negative implications when
employees go above and beyond
at work not because they
intrinsically want to, but
because they feel that they have
to, or when they are unable to
carry out their regular job duties
and be a good citizen at the same
time. Given the importance of
To Find Meaning in Your Work,
Change How You Think About It citizenship behavior for
by John Coleman
organizational success, it is
5 Questions to Help Your important that managers help
Employees Find Their Inner
Purpose employees find better ways to go
by Kristi Hedges
beyond the call of duty in order
You Don’t Find Your Purpose —
You Build It to help make work more
by John Coleman meaningful and less depleting.
One potentially effective way of
doing this is something we refer
to as “citizenship crafting.”

The idea of citizenship crafting is based on the concept of job

crafting, in which people redesign their work by altering aspects
of the job itself (task crafting), the people with whom they work
(relationship crafting), and their mindset about their jobs
(cognitive crafting) in ways that play to their strengths, motives,
and passions. Whereas job crafting captures how employees
redesign their formal role at work, citizenship crafting is based on
the notion that employees can proactively shape the ways in
which they to go beyond the call of duty such that they not only
contribute to the organization, but that they are also personally
meaningful, rewarding, and consistent with their strengths.

While employees are the ones who will craft their citizenship
behavior, ideally, they will consider not only their own needs but
those of their manager and colleagues. For this reason, we
encourage managers to let their employees know what types of
citizenship behaviors are most important for their workgroup,
while recognizing that asking employees to engage in too much
citizenship can be counterproductive. Employees should also be
forthright in communicating to their managers what types of
citizenship behavior are most consistent with their strengths,
motives, and passions. For instance, an introverted engineer who
dreads socializing but does not mind pulling the occasional all-
nighter might feel less obligated to take part in every social event,
knowing that she can be the one to take charge when someone
has to stay late to complete a critical project. Or a salesperson who
cannot stand to sit through meetings, but relishes opportunities
to coach others, can ask to be spared tedious committee work in
exchange for making extra time to shadow and informally mentor
new recruits. And employees should feel comfortable making a
conscious decision to voluntarily assist their colleagues who are
appreciative and generous in return, offering the type of
assistance that’s not such a burden to provide.

Although citizenship crafting is a new idea, prior research

indicates that it should benefit employees and managers alike.
First, to the extent that jobs contain tasks that align with
employees’ intrinsic motives, and are absent of tasks that
employees feel forced to complete, job performance tends to be
significantly higher; as such, citizenship crafting should result in
higher quality and more impactful acts of citizenship. Second,
employees who are able to engage in citizenship behaviors that
play to their strengths and passions should feel less stressed and
worn out from going the extra mile. By realizing that not all good
citizens look alike, and allowing employees to tailor their
citizenship to fit their unique interests and talents, managers can
simultaneously enhance employee well-being and workgroup
productivity. Finally, citizenship crafting should reduce the need
for managers to rely on extrinsic sticks and carrots to motivate
employees to go the extra mile. This should not only conserve
financial resources, but given evidence that extrinsic rewards can
sometimes undermine intrinsic motivation, citizenship crafting
should also help employees stay internally driven to go the extra
mile.

The bottom line is that managers and employees’ efforts to

enhance the meaningfulness of work by redesigning employees’
jobs should not stop where the formal job description ends.
Instead, we encourage employees to more thoughtfully and
proactively craft their citizenship behavior in ways that their
extra-role contributions lead to more meaning and fulfillment
while, at the same time, enhancing their firm’s performance.

MB
Mark C. Bolino is the David L. Boren Professor
and the Michael F. Price Chair in International
Business at the University of Oklahoma’s Price
College of Business. His research focuses on
understanding how an organization can inspire
its employees to go the extra mile without
compromising their personal well-being.

AK
Anthony C. Klotz is an Associate Professor of
Organizational Behavior at UCL School of
Management in London. His research focuses
on understanding employees’ relationships
with work, through the lenses of resignations,
citizenship behavior, and biophilic design.