Federally Mandated Furloughs: The Effect on Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Abstract

As the U.S. Congress searches for ways to remain proficient, while cutting expenditures in an effort to decrease the federal deficit, federal government employee furloughs could become more widely implemented. In order to sustain productivity within the U.S. Government federal civilian service while implementing furloughs, supervisors could benefit from a better understanding of how furloughs affect the organizational commitment (OC) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of federal government employees.The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of federally mandated furloughs on the OC and OCB of federal government employees. To answer this question, a nonexperimental survey study was conducted on federal government civilian employees and active duty military employees. By identifying the negative effects associated with furloughs, managers can more effectively address such things as decreases in morale, lowered productivity rates, and increases in employee turnover.

The Impact of Labour Force Reduction on the Financial Performance of Manufacturing Companies

“…Halbesleben et al (2013) point out how furloughs have a significant negative effect on employees as it leads to high emotional exhaustion and low performance at work. Furloughs are associated with augment turnover rates and lower production efficiency per employee due to employees diminished organisational commitment and organisation citizenship behaviour (Shepherd, 2017). Halbesleben et al (2013) assent that emphasizing furloughs in organisations increases turnover intentions among high performing employees, the very employees an organisation would prefer to keep.…”

“…Fraher (2013) asserts that furloughed workers experience increased stress and distraction at work leading to increased mistakes and poor performance resulting in deteriorating productivity and wastages at work. Employees stress results from worries that the employer might employ permanent labour force reduction methods such as layoffs (Shepherd, 2017). Ko and Yeh (2013) suggest that nonstandard work engagements such as furloughs are associated with declined job satisfaction and motivation among surviving employees who are at the core of an organisation's success.…”

“…Ko and Yeh (2013) emphasized that reducing an organisation's labour force diminishes employees' job satisfaction and motivation which results in employees slacking and absorbing less work. Shepherd (2017) noted that employees' zeal to complete tasks is shattered when they experience the loss of co-workers through labour force reduction especially when the memories are fresh on their mind. Drensky and Heinz (2014) emphasized that labour force reduction on its own is not sufficient to hinder employees from tackling the tasks they used to tackle before labour force reduction.…”

Managing furloughs: how furlough policy and perceptions of fairness impact turnover intentions over time

“…Regardless of approach, cutback strategies are designed to cut costs and/or increase efficiency (see Raudla et al, 2015 for a review of the cutback literature). A human resource cutback approach being used more frequently in recent years is furloughs, or unpaid leave (Shepherd, 2017). Furloughs are used to combat budget shortfalls for many different types of organizational entities, including local and national governments (e.g.…”