Most businesses and managers/CEO’s want to have a good team working with them at all times. They started their business with the plan to make it a success and they know they cannot do this alone. However, while their goal may be to hire an excellent staff of employees, contractors and consultants and maintain them, some of them are driving them away creating stress on themselves and their business.
Over the years I have worked with many different types of businesses, start-ups, CEO’s and managers and I have noticed some particular trends in the ones that tend to drive away good employees and contractors through their interactions and practices.
I asked 20 people who had quit jobs or moved to other jobs in the last two years what made them decide to move on. While you may think low pay or not enough benefits would be at the top of the list, it was actually at the bottom. While everyone wants to be paid what they are worth and would like things like health insurance and paid leave offered, the things that really pushed them past their breaking point were all within the control of management.
If you are doing some of these things, you may want to take a hard look at yourself, your business and the goals you want to accomplish and make some positive changes.
You Have No Concept of Work/Life Balance
This was one of the number one reasons I found that people became unhappy in their work with specific employers.
We all want to do our jobs well and we all want to make our employers happy with our work. This often causes us to put our jobs ahead of the important things in our lives like family, relaxation time and even our own mental health.
When an employer sends constant late night and weekend emails, texts during family time or even asking you for things while you are on vacation you feel obligated to respond or handle them. Again, this is the part of us that want to do our jobs and please our employers. However, what ends up happening in these scenarios is a huge lack of work/life balance which leads to more stress, resentment of your employer and even outright anger that your personal time is being bombarded.
A good leader will understand how important work/life balance is to their employees. They may want to put every ounce of their time into the business they are building, but they simply cannot expect the same from employees or contractors who will never see the end benefits.
They Only Point Out the Negatives
Another top reason sited for employee unhappiness was constant negative feedback. “I got so tired of only hearing about the one or two things I did wrong when there was never any mention of the things I was doing right,” said one of the people I talked to.
A good leader will always offer constructive criticism and a good employee will take it as a lesson learned, but there is a big difference between providing constructive feedback and just being plain negative, rude or unhelpful. There should be a healthy balance of positive reinforcement as well. No one is saying you need to coddle your employees, but the impact of positive reinforcement will be something you will see in their work performance and will have a much better results.
Your Approach/The Blame Game
This was mentioned by almost everyone I spoke with and is something I have seen myself in my own clients I eventually cut ties with. The way you approach things with employees and contractors says a lot about how you work with others. Pointing constant fingers, blaming statements and intimidating comments will never get you positive results.
“Why didn’t you do this?”
“Who messed this up this time?”
“How many times do we have to go over this?”
“Why was this done this way?”
“Why did you think this was right?”
These are just a few of the types of negative statements I have heard in the past and others have stated were reasons they eventually walked away from a job. This again relates back to positive reinforcement and leading instead of placing blame. Obviously if you have an employee who is constantly not doing their job or whose negative performance is affecting the business, it may be time to consider a change, but many times people who use statements like this with their employees are simply not able to properly approach a subject or issue and come out with a positive conclusion.
Every single one of these statements can be stated in a more positive and productive way and instead of placing blame, your goal should be to help your employee grow and learn, not walk away feeling like a scolded child.
Constant Changes With No Results/Confusion
I have seen this one on so many levels not only in big corporations but in small businesses alike and it is one of the top reasons for employee unhappiness, frustration and poor performance.
This often happens when organizations or leaders are incredibly disorganized or have no real concept of where they are going or how to lead others there. Instead of working to improve systems or organize the systems in place in a better way they come in and make huge sweeping changes too often, leaving people feeling confused, unsure and constantly in a state of not fully understanding their duties or role.
This causes chaos in the workplace environment which leads to excessive stress on staff. In the end the changes often have no positive results or impact because much like the systems that were put into place before them, they were never worked through or perfected and do not solve the initial problems at hand.
Bottom line, if you want to keep good employees so that your business runs smoothly, you have to be a good leader. This means looking at your own way of doing things and making improvements. Truly great leaders want to create other leaders. They want to encourage, develop and bring out the best in their employees.
If you take a look at some of the most successful businesses you will find an impressive leader that is well respected, who cares about their employees and who takes the time to develop skills to better lead.
