Usually, the psychological contract is unacknowledged and non-discussable within organizations. Everyone knows that they exist, but never talks about them—in part because they are very personal and because they are often unrealistic or unfair to either the employee or the organization. Schein suggests that much of the discontent inside many organizations can be traced to the breaking of psychological contracts between the employees and the organization.[lxii] Governmental agencies, for instance, that have a long history of stable employment, may attract psychological contracts in which employees expect to have lifelong employment in exchange for faithful service and a passive acceptance of authority and even the ineffectiveness of governmental administration. Similarly, mental health workers at a financially strapped human service agency expect to suffer quietly and with dignity in exchange for the waiver of any genuine accountability for the services they provide.
At the heart of the notion of psychological contract is an economic metaphor. Employees are, in essence, exchanging their services, commitments, and attitudes for certain benefits that are to be derived from the organization. This metaphor is certainly appropriate to modern organizations, for work is defined by economic terms by these organizations. Groups of employees become “cost centers” for modern institutions. They produce services and goods that yield “income centers” to offset these costs.
The psychological contract, however, also speaks to the limitations of the economic metaphor, for many aspects of the psychological contract relate to issues other than money and economics. Workers are interested in the meaning of their work and the recognition they receive for their work. Furthermore, the workplace has often become the primary neighborhood for many employees and the primary source of friendships. The workplace has become the primary neighborhood primarily because workers frequently move, commute long distances to their job, and find little time (as members of a dual career family) to interact with people living in their own local neighborhood. Many of us don’t even know the names of our neighbors, looking instead to our colleagues at work (along with our spouses and immediate family) as the primary source of meaningful interpersonal relationships.
Hygiene and Motivating Factors
Building on the need hierarchy of Abraham Maslow,[lxiii] Frederick Herzberg[lxiv] has suggested that workers in the modern era tend to look first toward basic hygiene factors when judging the satisfaction of their job: job security, benefits, working conditions (comfort, safety), and clarity of job responsibilities. Once these factors are in place, the worker will look toward what Herzberg calls motivating factors, such as prospects for advancement, interpersonal relationships and the meaningfulness of the work. Salary can be either a hygiene factor (minimum amount of money to meet basic needs) or a motivating factor (sufficient money to buy things that I enjoy and the linkage of salary to personal accomplishments).
