Work-related concerns have an equal – sometimes greater – effect on employee productivity. Even the issues of just one staff member often can affect the performance of a team or department.
Why employee concerns affect productivity
Employee concerns always affect productivity, positively or negatively. Occasions when their concerns have no effect are rare and possibly non-existent. This is not a psychologically complex reality. Most managers have seen tan
gible effects of personal, if not professional issues, affecting employee performance.
Employees find new boyfriends/girlfriends, get married, receive their college or graduate degrees, or have other wonderful events occur, and their productivity tends to improve.
Conversely, people face divorce, foreclosure, the loss of a parent, issues with children, or a variety of other personal issues, and their productivity declines, for at least the short-term.
Concerns that are satisfied by management for just one team member can often uplift the performance of the whole group. On the down side, should management not address concerns of even one team member, performance of that employee – and possibly the entire team – typically suffers.
The obvious conclusion: Management should address any concerns that employees have to maintain continuity of performance. Certainly, at times, the answers that management must provide are not what the employee wanted. Yet, their concerns were addressed and efforts made to resolve these issues.
How to determine employee concerns
Management sometimes maintain that they didn’t address employee concerns because they were unaware that one or more issues existed. While this statement may be true, it is imperative that management stay aware of employee concerns so they can address them before small issues become major performance detractors.
How can they do this? Just ask. As long as your staff have the security of knowing that they will not be punished or criticised for being truthful about their concerns, they normally will be honest – sometimes brutally honest. But, that is good news. Simple surveys or requests for suggestions or concerns have proven to be sufficient.
The top 10 issues that concern your employees
Surveys indicate that the following issues are the most common employee concerns in a cross section of all industries. These are not listed in any particular order of importance, as people have different concerns when in different situations.
- Higher salaries and compensation
Surprise! Few managers should be surprised by this concern.
- Benefits programs
This is another very common – and understandable – concern of employees. To limit turnover and increase retention, management typically tries to offer the best benefit program they can afford. Should programs fall short of ideal, management should communicate their dedication to make benefits the best they can be.
- Pay increase guidelines
This concern might initially surprise you. Compensation guidelines are normally in place for most larger companies, those with unionised workforces, and government agencies.However, most businesses are classified as smaller companies and it appears that this group often lacks this employee feature, generating confusion and concern from staff.
- Favouritism
This important concern may be related to item number three. Most senior management would dispute this concern, but they may be forgetting one important item: perception.Your company may be diligent in prohibiting favouritism, yet the perception of this failing, or the possibility of its existence, remains a concern of employees.
- Pay equity
While this concern may appear to relate to the above two issues, employee feedback indicates that it stems from a different source. Employees want to feel secure they are earning compensation equal to those who are in similar positions and have comparable experience.
- The human resource department
Most HR professionals are aware of this employee concern. Contemporary workers want and expect their HR departments to be fountains of knowledge about a myriad of issues (benefits, compensation, corporate plans and goals, legal and insurance issues, positions to be open in the future, etc.).
- Excessive management
Sometimes called “over management” or “micro-management”, this concern relates to employees feeling that their every activity is separately managed and little judgment or freedom is permitted.
- Inadequate communication
Has anyone heard this concern before? Employees have a need to believe they are “in the loop” by having as much information as possible on employer plans, goals, dreams, news, etc.
- Over-work
Employees are often afraid that their efforts and high performance may only result in management asking them to do more for the same compensation. Extra efforts should be rewarded by additional compensation (if possible) and/or a sincere “Thank you” at a minimum. Concern addressed.
- Workplace conditions and cleanliness
Management is sometimes caught off guard when advised that this concern consistently appears. But, upon reflection, it is perfectly logical. With more and more people committed to improved health and quality of life in general, it is not surprising that there is deep interest in their workplace’s physical conditions.
It is important to remember that these items are concerns, not necessarily complaints. Senior management in most companies regularly satisfy these and other employee concerns. This compilation of many statistics, however, does display the most common items of interest to the general workforce.
Asking your staff to advise you of their concerns gives management the opportunity to address issues of importance to their employees. Studies indicate that addressing employee concerns – regardless of the answers – is the most important activity.
Management displays their sincerity, their own concern, and their respect for their workforce. Making an honest attempt to address employee concerns typically results in improved staff performance.
Guest Author
Kelly Services is a global recruitment company, operating in 37 countries delivering temporary and full-time recruitment and HR/Recruitment Outsourcing and consulting.
Top 10 Employee Selection Mistakes … And Solutions
Selecting the right people is a critical leadership lever that drives growth. Employee selection is the ultimate pay-me-now or pay-me-later leadership proposition.
Do it effectively now and reap the benefits of a high-performing team later. Do it fast and cheap now, and pay the price later of increased turnover, underperforming teams, a diluted culture and drain on managerial time.
The cost of turnover averages 40% of annual salary in hard costs only (i.e. does not include ripple costs). Although there are many things managers can do to reduce turnover, making the right selection decision is where you get your bang for your buck. You can do the math: reduce your turnover by just 10 employees with a $40,000 average salary, and you have just dropped $160,000 back to your bottom line.
To help you reduce your turnover and improve your bottom line, below are solutions to the top 10 employee selection mistakes.
Use only a “gut feel” approach
No relationship has been found between years of experience hiring people and effective selection, so the experienced manager is no more effective than the rookie manager. Experienced managers tend to rely more on gut feel and stray from validated practices for effective selection.
Experience and intuition are important, but so are more reliable and valid ways to collect data such as testing, simulations and work samples. No one aspect of the selection process should be relied on exclusively; rather they should be weighted based on the company’s values and the job requirements.
Solution: Design and train on a selection process that contains various forms of data collection (qualitative and quantitative). Design your process and weight each selection component based on your company’s values.
Don’t know what you are looking for
It is hard to find “it” when you do not know what you are looking for.
Solution: Like most decision-making, employee selection is fundamentally emotional. Therefore, it is important to define and prioritise the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for the job in advance. This enables clear thinking to establish a specific position profile. Yes, it takes time, but it is an effective use of time versus “shooting in the dark”. See the following Applicant Evaluation Tool to help you avoid this mistake.
Screen in vs. screen out
Most interviewers inherently look for characteristics that match the company culture and job requirements. They want to find a winner – a match! This perspective subtly but significantly makes us filter in good attributes and rationalise why negative attributes will not be a problem if we hire this person.
Solution: View your job as an investigator who is looking for any little clue, any reason, why this candidate will not be wildly successful.
Talk 80% and listen 20%
The reverse should be true. If you are talking too much, then you are selling the job (see below) instead of screening the candidate.
Solution: The interviewer should listen 80% of the time.
Take candidates at their word
Do not settle for vague general responses to be polite.
Solution: You are on a data collection mission. Probe for specific examples and situations where the candidate has demonstrated the success factors you are looking for. Let the candidate know at the beginning of the interview that your goal is to fully and specifically understand his / her capabilities.
Give in to work and market pressures
The vast majority of managers hire too quickly and fire too slowly. In a tight labor market, it is not uncommon for a hiring manager to meet the candidate only once then make an offer. And when candidate supply is plentiful, managers tend to miss the opportunity to sift through lots of candidates to find the very best fit due to “lack of time”. Interesting that these same managers can find the time to deal with performance issues resulting from poor selection – again, pay me now or pay me later.
Solution: Use the 3 x 3 x 3 Rule: 3 employees interview 3 candidates 3 different times. You are thinking, “All that time for one hire?” You will spend much more time than that if you make the wrong hire.
Selling the job
This is another mistake that can be exacerbated in a tight labor market. Managers want to sell the candidate on their company because they know that the candidate likely has an offer on the table from a competing company.
Solution: The effective, long-term objective is to look for a good “fit” for the job and the company, regardless of the labor market conditions.
Oblivious to the legal Do’s and Don’ts
This may not prevent you from making the right selection decision, but it sure will increase your company’s liabilities.
Solution: Ignorance is no excuse. Know, train, and enforce the law in your selection processes.
Go with the flow
This comes down to lack of preparation and relying on those “favorite questions” and gut feel. Most interviewers do not take control of the interview.
Solution: Once you have identified the success factors and prioritised them, then prepare questions (and appropriate follow-up questions / probes) that will extract the necessary information from the candidate. Remember, it is your interview. You set the process, timing, roles, pace and questioning – not the candidate. This requires thoughtful preparation.
Listen only to the candidate’s words
90+% of all communication is nonverbal, so being attuned to the multitude of nonverbal cues provides an interviewer with much richer information about the candidate.
Solution: Don’t stop at the traditional cues: eye contact, posture, facial expressions and gestures. Consider intonation, pacing of speech, energy level, self-confidence. How did you feel after the interview? Enthused, tired, impressed? Perhaps those who work with the candidate will feel the same way.
So there you have it! Select well today, prosper tomorrow.
Guest Author:
Lee J. Colan Ph.D, is a leadership advisor, speaker and author of 10 rapid-read books, including the best selling, ‘Sticking to It: The Art of Adherence’.
CEO People Management 