Question:
“The employee that I thought I hired is nowhere in sight. She initially came across as motivated and positive in the interview process, but is now unhappy and maybe even disgruntled. What caused this change and what do I do to reverse it?”
Answer:
When people spend over one-third of their lives in offices, it’s essential to ensure that they work in a happy and productive environment. In our current business climate, disgruntled and disengaged employees are commonplace. When we dig deeper, all issues disgruntled employees have arise from the stress of dissatisfaction. Often, feeling unappreciated and undervalued is the root cause.
Fortunately, there is something you can do. Research has shown that supervisors provide the environment for solving employee dissatisfaction. They hold the keys to improved satisfaction and thus, improved communication, relationships, and culture in their team.
Improve Your Working Relationship
As a manager, there are some steps you can take to rebuild your relationship with your employee and ensure they are satisfied with both their work and their role in the company.
Take Initiative
Good managers always go first.* As managers, we always need to take the initiative and examine our own changes in behavior. It’s important to make and carry out commitments to our employees. With this in mind, review your own behavior and find reasonable, rational, and plausible reasons how your behavior may have sent the message that your employee is unappreciated.
This may not seem fair, but it is the first step in having a respectful conversation with the employee. You are not dismissing the behavior of the employee; instead, you are acknowledging that you may have contributed to their feelings.
Invite Their Perspective
Sit down face-to-face with your employee and share what you are observing. Invite her to share her perspective and listen carefully without interrupting. Paraphrase what the employee is saying without emotion or defensiveness, and clarify with them that you are hearing them. Once you’ve identified the issue, start exploring solutions. Ask for some tentative solutions from the other person’s perspective.
Use your best emotional intelligence skills to quiet your own emotions and capture the emotional response from the employee. What did you see and hear?
Later, examine your own emotions and write them down. How well did you receive the employee’s feedback?
Make a Plan
In a follow-up conversation, begin to outline a plan for addressing the employee’s concerns. Make sure that the employee brings ideas and solutions to this discussion. Ideally, the solution should be outlined in measurable and accountable goals that have deadlines and action plans. Sometimes, managers must also make commitments to improve the working relationship.
Enhance Employee Satisfaction
I am indebted to Pat Lencioni for ideas in improving work environments and employee engagement. In his book, The Truth About Employee Engagement, he suggests three ways to promote engagement and protect against dissatisfaction.
Guard Against Anonymity
We all need acknowledgement. Team members need to be known and understand that they are important to the team. Managers can demonstrate that they care about employees individually when we let them know us on a more personal level. When a manager really knows and understands someone and takes a sincere, genuine interest in the person, the impact on the individual’s sense of fulfillment, self-worth, and motivation is extraordinary.
Eliminate Irrelevance.
Team members need to know that their work matters. Employees are more likely to fulfill their job duties when they we understand that their our job serves and improves the lives of others. Managers can regularly highlight where the job matters – internally, externally, and even (or especially) for the life of the manager. This impact must be real; you as a manager must be able to show how the employee makes a difference. Those who see how their work influences others have a greater sense of purpose and motivation.
Rule Out Immeasurement**
Team members need to be able to measure their own level of contribution and success. This measurement must be concrete enough that the employee understands it is not left to the subjective measure of a manager. Without a tangible means of assessing one’s own success or failure, motivation begins to deteriorate. Managers can bring clarity to these measures of success so their employee can clearly see their contribution.
Following Through
Work on these areas and look for solutions that allow you and your employee to move toward mutual goals that benefit her, you, your team, and the organization. I’d love to hear back from you after six months to hear if this approach made an appreciable difference.
*David Maister reminds me in more than one of his books and articles that good managers always go first.
**This word is not in the dictionary. He invented the word for use in his book.
