Teryl @ Work

Is the employee toxic or simply disengaged?  And how to tell? Dissecting Employee Behaviour We spend hours of management time dissecting employee behaviour to ensure that not only is each employee delivering to a minimum expectation, he or she is not actively undermining the effectiveness of the business. We design KPAs (or KPIs, or whatever we want to call them), we run regular appraisals, we discuss career paths and succession plans, and  as long as toxic employees are delivering on their job description, we keep them! It’s only after they leave, when you hear the collective deep breath of relief from colleagues and management, that you can be absolutely sure of the negative impact. Underperformance vs Undermining My view has changed – rather an underperformer, than an underminer. So what to do? Once you have firmly established that undermining is the problem, the first step is to tell them that you are onto them! Never an easy task, because very few p...

It has become a cliche, and, like most cliches, there is a mix of truth and fallacy. So what does the average employee look for at work? High pay? Constant access to social media? Extensive leave? Very flexible hours? Well, yes, but research and empirical evidence also shows: Fair treatment  Growth Pleasant colleagues Pleasant working environment A manager who is demotivating can undo any positive effects that great corporate policies can have, while a great manager can mitigate the effects of a less people sensitive business strategy. Some ideas that work some of the time Discuss your reason for being there Sometimes we forget our business purpose or the difference we make to our clients, suppliers and various stakeholders.   Discuss it with your people, if you manufacture chocolate its easy to cover the "we make people feel good" side, but what if you do aluminium sidings?   Find the value in what you do, and share it with everybody. At...