‘New Norms for the New Normal?’ Evaluating and Enhancing Employee OCB Amidst Evolving Work Environments

The world of work has always been dynamic. Still, the impact of the pandemic has ushered in a milieu of changes in not just the nature and modes of work, but also the expectations of both employees and employers. Organizations can maintain high levels of productivity and engagement by promoting a positive work environment and encouraging organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), even when employees are working remotely. To overcome the ‘new normal’ challenges, leaders need to encourage more diverse positive organizational behaviours. Given the increased flexibility of these arrangements, it is important to understand how employees’ OCB may be impacted. Moreover, the traditional conceptualization of prosocial acts must be revisited to align OCB with contemporary work environments. In this chapter, we present a review of the existing OCB measures and highlight the contemporary shift in work environments while emphasizing the need for newer conceptualizations of OCB and thus the need for newer tools to measure OCB. Recommendations for enhancing OCB in the context of contemporary work environments have also been proposed. The views expressed and ideas proposed are very likely to have implications for recruiters, test developers, and HR professionals.