When you take stock of everything that’s going on at your organization, have you ever stopped to think about how your employees are doing? Are they happy at their workplace? Do they feel engaged with their work? Are they working in a high morale, well defined environment with clearly explained goals and transparent management? If the answer to any of these questions is no or unclear then your staff might be unhappy at work. That can mean it’s time to figure out how, why, and what you need to do to make employees feel like they are valued and contributing positively to the organization. It can be challenging to understand employees and make their workplace better, but learning about some of the things that cause unhappiness at work can help you do much better and right by your employees. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the most common things that cause worker attrition and productivity/performance issues and what you can do to address them appropriately. Check it out below.
Lack of Career Growth
When someone partakes on a career path, the last thing they want to do is stagnate at a singular level in their career without any hope of moving further within the company. Industrious workers like to get paid more for higher value work and assigned more challenging work as they climb the corporate ladder. When there is no opportunity to learn or grow, it pushes workers to seek other options. Approximately 82% of workers would leave an organization over lack of promotions, advancement opportunities, growth, and pay increases. If you’re having difficulties with retention and recruiting, it’s time to look at what type of advancement and growth opportunities you offer at your organization. Ensuring employees have something to aspire to and work toward within the organization can help reduce attrition significantly and make employees much happier on the overall.
Unrealistic Expectations
The natural enemy of morale and happiness in the workplace are unrealistic expectations. Think about it this way: if your work was not being appreciated or somebody else was constantly taking credit for it, how would you feel? Probably not very good. Employees who feel that way might take a negative outlook to the organization. This increases employee attrition, decreases productivity, saps motivation, and can potentially destroy morale. Worse, unreasonable expectations aren’t going to be accomplished by your team, ultimately setting them up for failure. The best way to combat this is to set realistic goals that can be attainable by the employees. Managers need to take the time to listen to the staff, address any concerns they may have, and take steps to recognize employee concerns in a meaningful way. By creating a positive work environment through transparency and manageable expectations, companies can expect to keep employees happy and engaged without much difficulty.
Lack of Recognition
Recognizing your employees is probably one of the most critical aspects of running a business today. Understanding how to do it can be a challenge. To begin with, you want to ensure staff feels appreciated. Acknowledge them for their hard work and recognize individual accomplishments. It’s also vital to recognize team accomplishments. Recognition should also be quite specific and maybe even a little unexpected. When performed frequently, recognition can do a lot of good. Employees might feel more inclined and motivated to rise to the occasion when they’re being actively recognized for their accomplishments. Using a powerful platform like the Workhuman cloud can introduce recognition into your organization with ease. Receiving recognition for managers is one of the most critical factors driving employee success.
Poor Leadership
Have you ever heard the fundamental philosophy that there’s a significant difference between a boss and a leader? In this particular instance, a boss is somebody who merely barks orders at subordinates and typically sits in an office all day. A leader, on the other hand, is a person who actively works with their crew, training them, developing their skills, focusing their attention on the employees, and getting their hands dirty when it comes to doing the job. Poor leadership can lead to problems for the company. In addition to losing employees, poor leadership can create resentments and anger among the staff. It can also lead to goals not being accomplished, unhappy clients, and quite a bit of turnover. Engagement, morale, happiness, and contentment go right out the window when bad leaders are involved. The consequences of poor leadership can lead to serious consequences for any business. If employees are unhappy, find out if poor leaders are the cause and take steps to retrain leaders to be more effective.
Not Feeling Valued
At the end of the day, if an employee does not feel valued or like their contributions matter to the organization, they’re more likely to jump ship when the opportunity arises. Thanking them for their work and letting them know they help the company succeed is a good way to make them feel appreciated. It’s also a good idea to provide feedback on their performance and solicit feedback on how well your leadership/training is going. Using a sort of 360 degree feedback method, you can get a good pulse on understanding whether your employees feel valued or not. Giving them tips on where they can improve, helping them learn, and finding ways to assist them with performing better are all integral to keeping employees happy and engaged at any company.