Fighting Workplace Negativity

Over the last year or so a great many companies, large and small, have been forced to make some changes to keep their heads above water and ride out the recession. Unfortunately it often means inflicting a certain level of “pain” on employees. This can mean layoffs or reassigning duties, titles and tasks in order to try and keep the business on an even keel. Doing so can be a difficult balancing act for managers. The changes have to be made but you still need to keep the goodwill and loyalty of those staff that remain.

This is often where negative energy begins to creep into the work environment. It commonly displays itself in one of four ways:

1. Sheer fear amongst employees that their jobs may be gone tomorrow, even this afternoon, and that fear becomes all they are focused upon.
2. Employees feeling helpless because although they know how to do their jobs properly some of the resources they are used to have disappeared.
3. As resources and staff are cut people on the team begin to fight with each over jobs not being done properly.
4. People are unhappy in their jobs but feel they cannot leave because the poor economy limits their choices.

As a manager it is up to you to counteract this negativity so that the whole department/company/team stays together and pulls through the bad times in the best shape possible. Some tips:

Increase Communications – You may have explained the reasons for the changes once but that is simply not enough. Employees need to understand what is “in it for them” to go through this pain and if you have to repeat yourself ten times a day to five different groups of people until the actions are understood that is  what has to be done.

Acknowledge Success – In times of crisis it is tempting to focus simply upon things that have to be improved or done better. But many things are still being done well and that needs to be acknowledged, even if it is just with a simple thank you.

Management has to be at its best – If employees are being asked to work harder for less, you as their manager need to be seen doing so as well. If you are asking an employee to undertake the work of two this is not the time for people to perceive that their leader is slacking off.

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