We are independent & ad-supported. We may earn a commission for purchases made through our links.
Advertiser Disclosure
Our website is an independent, advertising-supported platform. We provide our content free of charge to our readers, and to keep it that way, we rely on revenue generated through advertisements and affiliate partnerships. This means that when you click on certain links on our site and make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn more.
How We Make Money
We sustain our operations through affiliate commissions and advertising. If you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, we may receive a commission from the merchant at no additional cost to you. We also display advertisements on our website, which help generate revenue to support our work and keep our content free for readers. Our editorial team operates independently of our advertising and affiliate partnerships to ensure that our content remains unbiased and focused on providing you with the best information and recommendations based on thorough research and honest evaluations. To remain transparent, we’ve provided a list of our current affiliate partners here.
Home

Our Promise to you

Founded in 2002, our company has been a trusted resource for readers seeking informative and engaging content. Our dedication to quality remains unwavering—and will never change. We follow a strict editorial policy, ensuring that our content is authored by highly qualified professionals and edited by subject matter experts. This guarantees that everything we publish is objective, accurate, and trustworthy.

Over the years, we've refined our approach to cover a wide range of topics, providing readers with reliable and practical advice to enhance their knowledge and skills. That's why millions of readers turn to us each year. Join us in celebrating the joy of learning, guided by standards you can trust.

What Is Perceived Organizational Support?

By Rebecca Harkin
Updated: May 17, 2024
Views: 11,180
Share

Perceived organizational support (POS) is a workplace environment that fosters feelings in workers that their company or institution cares for them and can be trusted. When perceived organizational support is in place, the benefits for the employer and the employee are reciprocal. Employees benefit from perceived organizational support by receiving better wages and benefits for hard work, enjoying supervisor’s support with work issues and working conditions, and feeling their work is meaningful and helpful to the company. The benefits of POS for the company is that it produces hard working employees who are willing to make sacrifices for the company and will push to improve the company as well as decrease absenteeism and apathy.

The key to POS is organizational identification, or conformity between the values of the company and the values of the employee. To begin with, a company must have and show high esteem for the employee by caring for their physical and emotional needs. When this is done, it will in turn foster feelings of high esteem in the workers for the company or institution, creating an overall congruency of values.

POS primarily lies in the hands of the supervisors of workers. Employees often assign human like qualities to the companies or institutions they work for, and those qualities are often related to the way they are treated by their supervisors. When a worker is praised, rewarded, and supported, there is perceived organizational support and the employee will typically praise and reward the company by working hard. Conversely, when a supervisor is derogatory or does not address problems or complaints, the employee feels the company does not care about or value them. The skills to build and enhance perceived organizational support need to be taught to supervisors.

The idea of POS sounds simple enough, but this idea can become complicated and difficult to apply unless a company makes business decisions with POS in mind. For example, high paid workers with excellent benefits who had to battle to get those rewards, either personally or through a union, will not necessarily have perceived organizational support once they get the better wages and benefits. These workers may actually feel undervalued by the fight. In this case, the company gave in to the high demands but lost the benefits they may have gleaned from the positive organizational support.

POS has been growing in popularity because its value in the workplace is being recognized. Many POS studies have found perceived organizational support improves an employee’s work ethic and loyalty to the company as well as reduces absenteeism. Making and keeping workers happy is apparently good for business.

Share
WiseGeek is dedicated to providing accurate and trustworthy information. We carefully select reputable sources and employ a rigorous fact-checking process to maintain the highest standards. To learn more about our commitment to accuracy, read our editorial process.

Editors' Picks

Discussion Comments
Share
https://www.wisegeek.net/what-is-perceived-organizational-support.htm
Copy this link
WiseGeek, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.

WiseGeek, in your inbox

Our latest articles, guides, and more, delivered daily.