subject: MY BOSS BIBLES: Employee Discipline; Your problem or theirs? [print this page] MY BOSS BIBLES: Employee Discipline; Your problem or theirs?
Do employees cower when they see you coming?
When you get overwhelmed do you take it out on the nearest person?
Do you know how your message has been received by your employees?
Now the big question! Do you think that these things make a difference in productivity?
Yes! These make a tremendous difference in how people feel and therefore, how they perform.
Human beings are very complex creatures; we are ruled by our emotions, yet we have a logical side that many times is contrary to our feelings. When logic tells us one thing and emotions tell us another, the result is confusion. Does having confused employees fit in with your marketing and production plan? Or is this counterproductive?
The answer lies in the job itself. An example of a job that does not include feelings would beHMMM? Well, I honestly can't think of one!
Even people who work alone have internal feelings that will positively affect or negatively affect their output. An attendant at an all night parking garage may be sitting alone for hours at a time, so what are they thinking about? Studies show us that humans are happiest when actively involved with other humans. Too much alone time can easily lead to depression.
Does it make a difference to you the employer if an employee suffers from depression?
Depression can manifest itself with; sick time, poor job performance, rudeness and even violence. This will certainly affect your bottom line with lost revenue, claims to your insurance and perhaps a law suit.
Even the simplest of jobs are affected by our feelings. If you take the example above you can see that this is not a high energy, high stress, and high paying occupation. Yet, they can easily affect the profitability of your company. Now take it one step further and apply this to your organization. Do you have salespeople? Do you yell at them?
Fear can be a great motivator for a salesperson, right? It makes them hungry and toughens them up to go out and make that sale!! How about if the fear that possessed them was in letting you down, instead of incurring your wrath?
Humans will actually work harder to impress someone that they both like and respect. The fear of losing esteem in the eyes of those close to us will drive us more than fear of a bully. Yes I said the B word. BULLY! When an authority figure embarrasses you it is felt emotionally, it is the same feelings that a bully forces on a kid at school. It feels the same internally. It matters not that we are talking about an adult with an education and children of their own. The emotional response is the same for a 36 year old as it is for a 10 year old. Emotions do not have an age! They just are!!
The manner in which we as adults deal with our emotions is the definitive factor between the scared child that we used to be and the scared adult that we are now. Many adults faced with fear of repercussion will decide to start looking for a new job. The feeling is that they are probably going to get fired because the Boss has it in for me. We have all seen this, whether it is true or not, the net result is usually a lost employee and a vacancy to fill. WOW, this just cost your company actual money.
The cost of hiring and training new employees varies from industry to industry, but you know this. And you know what it costs you in particular; the advertising, the interview process, the down time for training and then follows a period of time where the new employee actually gets to the point of competence and confidence. It really is time consuming.
What would the result be if the employee decided that, they not only like and admire you, but want to emulate some of the qualities that you have shown? Are they more or less likely to just leave for another position?
You are the deciding factor in keeping employees for long term. The manner that you express is the difference between a good work environment and a poor one. When you are disappointed in something or someone, try to express that you are disappointed, not angry. You will see the change immediately on people faces, we do not like to disappoint. It makes us feel bad about ourselves and therefore we will do almost anything to avoid it.
Treating your employees like people first will make you a person that others want to, not only work for, but impress. This will have an extremely positive impact on you profit and loss statement. You will see less lost time in sickness (because people feel good), less claims on your insurance (because feeling good makes you healthier), higher productivity (because they want to make themselves look good in you eyes). And the biggest bonus of all!! You will actually feel better as well!
When you people are happy they produce more and want you to know it. Imagine coming to work in the morning and having happy people greeting you with stories of how they came up with a better way to do something, or made more sales or came up with a solution to a problem. This happens when people feel like they are respected.
