BLOOMINGTON -- What gives you a migraine at work? The threat of layoffs? An extra workload? The loud talker? The constant whiner?
Sick of their jobs and their employers, nearly half of all high-performing employees around the nation are looking for new work and 44 percent are passively looking, according to Leadership IQ, an online managerial training firm.
And worker morale could get worse as corporations try to keep pace with Wall Street expectations and compete globally against foreign companies that pay their employees far less, said Richard Sullivan, a sociology professor at Illinois State University.
“We’re going to see a decline in working standards,” he said. “We’re going to work longer hours. We’ll have less job security. Pensions are already going away.”
But downsizing, staff turnover, job security and added workload aren’t the only detriments to worker morale, though those are often sore spots.
Sometimes it’s much simpler than that, according to Twin City experts.
“The average employer tries to fix things that aren’t broken. They think employees aren’t happy about ‘X.’ Well, they may care a little about ‘X,’ but they’re more upset about 14 other things,” said Richard Galbreath, president of Performance Growth Partners, a human-resources outsourcing firm based in Bloomington.
“What you hear as an owner is sanitized information, or you hear from the constant complainer who has their own agenda and doesn’t necessarily speak to the interest of the group,” he added.
Galbreath, Sullivan and life coach Susan O’Rourke of Emerald Coaching in Bloomington attempt to nail down what makes workers unhappy and what employers can do to retain a happy, qualified staff.
What makes them mad?
O’Rourke knows both sides of the stories about anger in the workplace. As a life coach, she’s counseled both the employee and the employer.
At the heart of the issue for both sides often is constant complaining. Every office has that employee who just complains about everything, O’Rourke said. Unfortunately, that bickering spreads like a disease and it magnifies small problems.
“It trickles down to co-workers, so not only is (the complainer) not producing, but everyone around them is forced to listen to the complainer, even if they have no interest,” she said.
Another common problem similar to the chronic complainer is the office screamer, O’Rourke added.
“In the cubicle farms today, there is a false sense of privacy,” she said. “It can get loud. A lot of times there’s one employee that starts to talk louder to hear himself on the phone. That loud employee starts to annoy other employees.”
The next thing you know, the chronic complainer has something new to gripe about, employees around the complainer start to chatter and the loud guy gets louder.
Those examples stem from the cubicle. The larger problems, O’Rourke and Galbreath agreed, stem from mismanagement that leads to employees feeling unappreciated.
Today, downsizing and layoffs are so common people have become desensitized to it, said Galbreath. Before starting his own business, he worked for a company that for a period of time set an empty box on someone’s desk every Friday night as way to signal they were laid off.
“The average employee has more of a tolerance than people did 20 years ago. I have friends who’ve gone through downsizing three or four times already,” he said.
Even if employees see the handwriting on the wall, employers need to handle the situation appropriately and most of the time they don’t, Galbreath said.
Employers try to avoid confrontation by lying about a number of common questions after a change in ownership or a period of downsizing.
Employees expect specific answers regarding job security, pay, benefits, workload, responsibility and other matters, he said.
“People can stand a certain amount of stress in their lives,” he said. “But no one wants to be lied to. We just have to start being honest. When I’m asked to come in and do cultural work, the first thing I have to fix is the trust in management.”
“Cultural work,” Galbreath said, is a euphemism for “trying to make people happy.”
Cultural work
Be honest and tell employees exactly what is going on.
In the case of corporate downsizing, Galbreath said employers need to help employees understand the situation.
“Say ‘Here are the financial pressures we have, and here’s what we’re going to do to take care of it,’” he said. “The employee may not like the answers, but at least they’ll feel valued and trusted.”
Executives may feel more and more pressure to cut costs, but not all job perks are related to salary and benefits, Sullivan said.
“There are some things businesses can’t do because of competition, but can you let them out early on Fridays?” Sullivan asked. “Can you let them go to their kid’s soccer practice one afternoon? These things don’t have much impact on finances, but they really make a difference in terms of morale.”
Also, hire and retain the right employees, Galbreath said. One company may lay off an entire department, for example, rather than keeping the best people from that department and laying off slackers from another department.
And Galbreath has serious issues with hiring practices.
“The average person is hired with less than 45-minutes of interview time,” he said. “If we were buying equipment, we would spend months talking about it, researching the product, conducting the cost-benefit analysis, yet for some reason we think it’s OK to hire someone after meeting them once.”
Once you found a capable person who fits into the cultural environment of your cubicle farm, work hard to make them feel appreciated, O’Rourke said.
To start, make sure they have a clear, defined set of marching orders.
“You would be amazed how many people have no idea what their immediate supervisor wants or needs from them,” she said. “If you know exactly what you’re boss wants and expects, you’re more likely to meet those goals and feel a sense of accomplishment and worth.”
Taking it a step further, Sullivan said employees need to be able to make their own decisions without having a supervisor watch their every move.
“Workers have a less and less tangible aspect to their work. I mean at McDonald’s, people can’t even open the cash register without a manager watching,” he said. “Certainly the morale of the job is related to the reward of the work being done.”
And jobs that don’t reward are easy to complain about.
To curb the constant complainer or office screamer, O’Rourke suggests discouraging idle chitchat, particularly if personal matters are brought up in conversation. Employers, she said, walk a fine line when becoming personally involved with employees. It’s not a good idea. Still, employers should be cognizant of personal situations that may affect worker output. That way, they can cut the employee slack when he or she really needs it.
And, she added, don’t just accuse employees of constant whining or loud talking. Tell them how to solve the problem.
“You don’t want to say, ‘You’re too loud, be quiet.’ Say, ‘I’m wondering how we can help you, so you don’t feel like you have to shout all the time,’” O’Rourke said.
That approach works for any workplace problem, she said.
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