Indifferent workers signify underlying problem

Your staff are your most valuable resource. Communicate and treat them as such. PHOTO | BD GRAPHIC 

By DR FRANK NJENGA

In Summary

• If indeed the problem is recent, seek to establish what else has changed at the work place in the recent past.

I feel like I have been having some communication breakdowns lately with my employees. I’d like to work with them to try to resolve these issues. I don’t want to accuse people by constantly saying “you do this, and you do that”.

How best do I go about solving this communication breakdown?
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I do not know how many employees you have under you, and I am not sure how big the organisation is and hence have no idea if you are talking about two or 200 employees. It is also important to know what business or profession you are in so that we can better understand the nature of the challenge that you face.

If, for example, you are a stay-at-home mother who has three employees, a nanny for your daughter, cook, gardener and perhaps a security guard, it is possible that your challenge with communication with all of them is due to the fact that you are suffering from post partum depression.

This condition which affects up to 15 per cent of mothers in the first year after birth is not recognised in many cases and leads to much pain and suffering by all concerned.

For the new mother, life feels like hell on earth. She is unable to sleep, eat, or look forward to the day. She feels sad, is miserable and feels hopeless and useless. The joy of being a mother is turned into a nightmare.

The cries of her baby sound like irritating sounds that cause her severe headache and heartache. Looking after the baby and even breast-feeding is a chore she is unable to attend to.

Much as she tries to do that which is right, which is to love the baby, she feels without love, is tired and angry. This leads to guilt because she knows she should be feeling the joy of motherhood.

The baby picks out the mother’s “cold” body and feeds and sleeps poorly making mothering even more difficult. As is the case for you, your domestic staff are not spared and you end up giving them contradicting instructions, based on your ever worsening and changing mood.

You end up feeling that there is a communication breakdown between you and your employees. So, it is clear that it is only after you have recovered from post natal depression you will be able to deal with your staff.

To put it differently, it is sometimes the employer who needs to change in one way or another for communication to improve at the workplace.

At the other extreme, you might be asking the question as the employer of 800 flower farm workers, and you are feeling that the communication breakdown is due to the fact of their low productivity and frequent threats of strike action.

In such a case, you might first have to try and find out where the problem lies.

First of all, you tell us that you have noted the communication breakdown with your employees only recently. If indeed the problem is recent, seek to establish what else has changed at the work place in the recent past.

Do you, for example, have a new human resource manager? If you do, did he occupy that position from within the company or did you hire him from outside? If from within, was he seen by his colleagues as competent and able or are some members of staff murmuring about how unqualified and unfair he has always been!

Do some members of staff perhaps feel that you favoured him or her because of this or other reason? Do they think he/she is too young, too old or simply the wrong personality for the top job in HR. Was there a process of recruitment that was seen as objective and fair or was it all shrouded in secrecy?

If the person is from the outside, say from a competitor flower farm, your staff might be wondering what you think is wrong with them, and why one of them could not have been chosen to take the job.

What you describe as a breakdown in communication with your employee could well be their way of telling you how unhappy they are with your hiring somebody from outside for this important position.

Getting back to the basics therefore, you may wish to seek to better understand what and how you communicate to your employees.

Did you, for example, send them all an email informing them of the changes, or did you do it in a meeting with senior staff and heads of department?

If you did manage to get an agreement with the senior staff who then met their departments and explained the changes in the weekly departmental meetings, then your system is possibly good and what you have is a temporary challenge.

If your senior staff are also against you then your problem is bigger and you must try to get them to work with you.

The problem you describe cannot be wished away and you must find a quick and lasting solution if you are to avoid disaster.

Remember, your staff are your most valuable resource. Communicate and treat them as such.