Communication improves performance

Employees who feel connected, passionate, and part of your organization are obviously people who you feel good about investing your company resources in. How about those employees who have grown disenchanted, burnt out, or who exhibit negative attitudes? Are they worth an investment of your time and resources? Absolutely!

The irony is that these individuals most likely feel a strong connection to your organization and have become disenfranchised because they have been disappointed from their experiences. This is an excellent opportunity to examine your workplace. Why are people becoming frustrated? Is your organization living up to its mission to the end user, as well as the employees hired to execute the mission?

The single most common complaint of employees is they feel their workplace lacks effective communication and employees often feel unappreciated or uninformed. The decisions of management seem to be made at will, without clear understanding by the staff tasked with carrying out the policies and procedures.

One of the most effective techniques for turning around negativity in the workplace is to communicate directly with the employees and ask them to share their perceptions and/or experiences. It is likely that what they share may be information you were unaware of. Encourage them to not only pinpoint the problems, but also encourage them to make suggested solutions. Perhaps they have thought of solutions but were unaware their feedback would be considered. Work to improve communication in the workplace with weekly meetings between employees and the appropriate managers. When employees feel as though they have a valued role on the team, they tend to perform more productively.

If after meeting to address the employee frustrations and/or concerns, it becomes clear that the individual cannot or will not be amenable to solutions, you may want to consider the impact this employee has on the greater work team. Leaving negativity unchecked in the workplace is a disservice to those employees who are productive members of your work group.