Introduction
Dear readers, in my view of the world there are 48 demotivators that affect the work of company employees. And, since every person is unique, some demotivators can have a strong influence on him, others mean, and some can be almost invisible. Therefore, the numbering of demotivators does not in any way reflect their power and impact on the employee. It's just numbering.
Now you will see demotivator number 1 in my list. After a while I will post the second, then the third,…. When you familiarize yourself with all of them, everyone will be able to determine the correct priority for themselves and choose which one will be in the first place, which one will be in the second, and so on.
So, let's start the series. Enjoy reading!
Covid-19 ... Quarantine ... Crisis ... Companies are closing ... Budgets are being cut ...
Employees can see all this. They see contractions. They see companies begin to monitor the budget intensely. They see large companies leaving the market.
How do employees feel when they look at all this? They sense danger and fear. They start to doubt their company. The company may be large, well-known, high-profile, but that was yesterday, and now there is instability ahead. Who knows how everything will turn out tomorrow? “Here, Ivan Sergeevich also worked in a large company yesterday. And today he is looking for a new job ... ”- this is how the employee thinks.
Employees see how people are left without earnings
Companies are cutting costs. Some send people at their own expense, others fire them. Specialists who have ceased to be relevant in a remote location (office managers, administrators, cleaning managers, waiters, ...) - go home. Companies are starting to rethink their business processes and optimize them. In the course of such optimizations, functions that:
- they are not needed for a long time and do not carry any value;
- can be automated.
Accordingly, people who performed these functions are fired.
People are afraid
On the one hand, information is flying: “massive layoffs have reached x%”, and on the other hand: “companies have suspended the search for new candidates at y%”. They feel fear, they are under stress. Just about, and the manager will call them and inform about the termination of cooperation.
What does this lead to?
People lose their enthusiasm and productivity decreases. First, it is the body's natural response to fear, stress, and pressure. An employee, especially an intellectual worker, cannot work effectively in this state. He gets tired quickly, he has less energy, he cannot create. He cannot collect thoughts and concentrate. Secondly, why bother if the company goes down tomorrow, if I’m fired tomorrow, if the company doesn’t pay me? If the employee was not very involved before and had previously tried to evade work, now he has a great reason and argument for this. Which he will gladly take advantage of.
And all this happens during a crisis !!! At the time when you need to mobilize and increase your efficiency! Do you understand the absurdity and sadness of the situation? When a company needs to increase its efficiency in order to survive, people decrease their efficiency. This aggravates the situation and leads to logical consequences.
Who is to blame for this situation?
Let's start with the employees. Are they to blame? What do they base their conclusions on? On what the leaders say and how they talk about it. But, the problem is that they don't speak. Then, you have to use everything else: rumors, news, friends, your own conclusions (they say, “looking at the crack in the wall, it seems to me that we’re trying to get away with it”),…. The more rational will try to reason logically in the context of the company and its results, and try to remember:
- what results did we have before?
- ?
- ?
- ?
But what answers can they find? If the company did not previously have a rule to inform about its condition, results and future, then, most likely, it will be necessary to operate with rumors again. And, since bad rumors and problems circulate through the company with greater inertia and on a large scale, problems will be remembered, but there is no victory. In addition, even most rumors will be limited to the employee's immediate environment, his department. Accordingly, all this information will be so one-sided and concentrated that it will further aggravate the employee's depressive state.
And this is the key problem and demotivator: the employee has no information about the state of the company and its future. The employee has no strategy in his head.
When people do not understand what will happen to the company, where it is going, why it is moving there and what will eventually happen to them, they feel hopelessness and discomfort. This is a state of constant threat of dismissal, which leads to stress.
If the employee possessed all the information necessary for an adequate assessment, he would either cease to be afraid, or be consciously afraid. And conscious fear is a completely different state. It forces one to go to the question: “How can this be changed? How can you avoid this? How to influence this? ”.
What are leaders doing?
They do not communicate with employees in any way. Why? There are three popular reasons:
1) "We ourselves do not know anything."
The leaders, instead of getting involved and working on anti-crisis measures, are waiting. They are waiting for everything to resolve by itself, when everything stabilizes, when quarantine ends…. Waiting!
The most popular phrases:
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Let's return to the question of ignorance.
You don't know anything and do something about this ignorance? Or do you know nothing and are idly waiting for a denouement? If the first option is to go public with him. Tell people that you are in the process of developing a strategy that will keep the company afloat. And you will be ready to voice this strategy to everyone then. This will already be a good step! At the very least, people will understand that there is still a chance and that their leaders are working to keep jobs saved.
2) Leaders don't think it's important
Option one: Leaders simply don't think about it. Previously, such communication has never been carried out, there is no such practice. And now there is no time for meetings: “We need to work, not consult!”.
It is necessary to work, but at the same time, the work must be accurate and efficient. People should understand what the situation is now, what awaits them tomorrow and where we are running and why. This will remove fear and increase the accuracy of “shots” (correct decisions and actions).
But I will say more. The state of turbulence in a company during a crisis shortens the employee's charge period. That is, if you had a motivational conversation with people, the effect of such motivation will be several times shorter than in a quiet time. Therefore, during a crisis, communication time should be allocated in a larger volume than it was before! And if it didn't stand out earlier, it's time to start.
Option two: Leaders believe that strategy is a manuscript that only a select few can interpret, understand, and use. That regular people are so stupid that they will not understand: no schemes, no numbers, no terminology. If so, why waste time on it?
Everything is correct. The strategy, in its original version, is written in a language sufficient for understanding the upper Lanka of leaders (creators of the strategy). And in this form, of course, it can be incomprehensible to staff members. At the same time, the strategy still needs to be lowered down. For how will it be realized differently? You can, of course, try not to communicate the strategy and implement it exclusively on tight manual control (through orders), but this is an ineffective option. The strategy must be brought down, and for this the document must be translated into a language that will be accessible and understandable to all employees of the company. And what is impossible to describe clearly must be explained orally.
3) Leaders are afraid that people will react negatively
Simply put, managers are afraid that people, upon hearing some unpopular decision, will begin to resist its implementation. They will start to riot, sabotage and quit.
They can and will :) There will never be a situation when all employees will calmly accept news that is unpleasant for them. But, the question is in the scale of the resistance. If you don't go out to people at all, they will still figure it out on their own and this option will look even worse. Therefore, I believe that even if there is bad news in the strategy, it still needs to be announced publicly. This is, firstly, the action of a strong person and leader - not to be afraid and to say everything as it is. Secondly, you still have a way out of this bad situation. Truth? And if so, then you will also voice it and people will see: “Yes, there are problems. But, the company knows how to deal with them and what needs to be done for this. And there is a plan ... And there is a timeline. " It looks strong!
An exception
I admit the absence of a strategy in the minds of employees only if a genius is at the head of the company, and all employees consider him so. They idolize him and strategy is replaced by fervent faith in his genius. Otherwise, people need to understand the current state and strategy.
"Do I see this company as the one in which I plan to work for a long time?"
Let's move away from the crisis period and fear for our workplace, and consider the situation from the other side. Namely, the fact that the employee views the company as one in which he is ready to invest his time, and in return wants to get skills, experience, money, success.
What does it take to make an investment decision? We need data. Data about the state of the company, its past and its future. And, if based on this data, the employee sees that the company has prospects and that its strategy is ambitious, he will want to invest (invest his time) and receive his dividends. But as long as the employee does not have this data (there is no strategy in his head), he will not be able to make a decision in favor of the company. An employee will not invest his time in something that is not clear, dreary, and, as a result, will not give an exhaust.
Different people come to your company. Some from the very beginning are tuned in to the regime “horses die from work”, while others are looking for a springboard to start their careers. But, here's the question: will they see in your company those necessary characteristics of a foothold that will convince them to share a large chunk of their career with you? And this is all a strategy. Even if your company is small, your strategy, which has ambitious and realistic goals, will convince you to work with good specialists.
PS The development of a company from scratch is often a driver for the ambitious.
Let's take another example. There is a young ambitious man who has just graduated from the University. He studied well, worked part-time during his studies and has good software skills. Now he chooses for himself a company in which to start his career. He understands that it is too early for him to apply for a high position, since he has neither experience, nor knowledge, and he is not enough for years. He understands this and is ready to start from scratch. And so, he gets into your company and starts working. Two months pass, and he perfectly understands how long he has been with you. How does he make this choice? Based on the company's strategy! He compares the company's development prospects with his career plans. If there is no strategy or no strategy, he will not consider the company as one in which he can work and grow for a long time.
Outcomes
If employees do not have information about the state of the company and its future, they will feel fear and worry about their future. This applies to both the crisis period (which I described in detail) and the calm one.
Managers, with sufficient regularity for this, should communicate with employees about:
- the current state of the company;
- successes;
- problems;
- prospects;
- strategy (changes in strategy).
As a consequence: people must be sure that the company is run by professionals who perfectly understand where they are leading the company, that they can be trusted, and that they will be safe with them.
Lyrical digression
I find the 2020 crisis useful in terms of how it affected corporate governance. Companies redefined their business processes, companies optimized, companies had to develop a strategy, companies had to rethink their attitude to business. Absolutely all the companies that remained afloat entered 2021 more prepared and more “fit”. Managers have become more professional and wiser.
I equate this experience with survival in extreme conditions. After all, passing extreme tests that threaten him with death is an experience that will allow him to cope with any difficulties in the future. Experience in anti-crisis management. He's priceless!
The continuation of the series and other articles about management can be found in my telegram channel: t.me/OS_management
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