Exploring the Link between Psychological Contract Contents and Human ResourcePractices

Companies are going through a tough patch right now, but employees know their rights and how they contribute to the company's success. The connection between employers and employees is delicate, built on trust and the understanding that each party has a responsibility to meet the other's expectations. An abundance of studies examining the impact of different internal and external factors on employees' psychological contracts have been conducted during the past twenty years. Among these studies, human practices have been identified as a key factor in shaping employees' psychological contracts (Guzzo et.al., 1994; Richard et.al., 2009). The psychological contract is the subject of this article; it concerns the unspoken understandings that exist between employers and workers, as well as the ways in which HR policies and procedures influence these understandings. Upon closer inspection, the terms of the psychological contract are nothing more than an offshoot of the company's human resources policies and procedures, which in turn are directly related to the employee's expectations of his employer.