Employee Variables that Help Explain Differences in Behavior and Performance

Individual variables are those attributes that are intrinsic to the individual and serve as a catalyst for the subsequent behaviors exhibited and performance level achieved. The link between employee attributes and their overall performance, especially with respect to co-workers and customers, is well known. A few of the individual differences that can influence behaviors include abilities and skills, family background, personality, perception, attitudes, attribution, learning capacity, age, race, sex, and experience. Because of the sheer volume of material that could be presented for all of these variables, we can briefly mention psychological variables such as perception, attitudes, and personality as being most important (Gibson, Ivancevich and Donnelly, 1994).

It is important for managers to understand how the complex subset of attributes possessed by individual employees can be affected by their managerial style. Employee behavior is generally well-reasoned within the sphere of perception. Some individual attributes such as age, race, and gender cannot be altered -- therefore, an understanding of individual differences that can be altered/affected (e.g., perception, attitudes, and personality) and their role in job effectiveness is a crucial part of a manager's job. Managers can help adjust the employee's environment to emphasize best their individual attributes. Moreover, although it seems unlikely that an individual's behavior can be substantially altered, many other psychological variables associated with the job can be adjusted to fit the individual and thereby encourage peak performance. In sum, it is task of managers to ascertain how performance and behavior vary with psychological differences among employees.

Reference

Gibson, J.L., Ivancevich, J.M., & Donnelly, J.H., Jr. (1994). Organizations: Behavior, structure, processes (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Irwin.