I have to award my management team an “A” for effort and perseverance.  Things have been tough at our workplace for the past four years.  Did I say tough?  I meant oppressive.  We’ve been forced to weather the worst economic conditions in the history of our organization and it’s taking a serious toll on the attitudes and demeanors of the staff as well as forcing them to realign their priorities.  Not long ago, employee satisfaction was its highest and no one balked at possibly having to stay an hour late or work a few hours on a Saturday to address critical issues.  No one ever responded, “What’s in it for me?” to a manager’s request for someone to take on a project or pitch in to help another team that was drowning in overdue work tasks.  Productivity was never questioned; it was rare to see idle employees at any time throughout the building.  Moreover, employee appreciation was so prevalent that no one questioned whether or not the organization truly valued their skills, knowledge, and dedication.  Employees were rewarded for longevity—which encouraged them to stay on and continue contributing the success of this organization rather than take their knowledge elsewhere.  They had a sense of belonging and they wanted to stay.

 

Those days are now shadows of how it was when one would proudly respond to the question, “Where do you work?”  As was the case with numerous other businesses, the national economic problems forced our organization to enact a major workforce reduction and the first to go would be those with greater than X number of years of service.  It was devastating as older people were offered buyouts in exchange for early retirements and younger people were offered severance packages.  For those that remained employed, it would take two years to heal from the stress of that period, only to be followed by a similar period of uncertainty called, “restructuring.”  Restructuring meant that if it was determined that a particular position was unnecessary or the person in that position was unqualified, then the individual would be given three options:  To take a lesser position with a pay reduction; to continue in the same position but only on the condition that they accept a large pay reduction and try to work their way back up again by increasing their knowledge by enrolling in programs offering certification, a degree, or license; or separate from the organization.

 

So, you can see why employee engagement might be a serious challenge for this management team.  They keep trying different ideas to bring up morale but the workforce is skeptical.  They don’t trust their leaders because they feel like they were shafted, like no one was in their corner defending their abilities and dedication during the restructuring activities.  They complain when overtime is required.  They complain when the workloads increase.  They complain that they’re no longer being paid adequate wages for what is being expected of them and they don’t wish to share themselves with their co-workers.  They simply want to come in, do their jobs, and leave.  But these managers won’t give up that easily; they are determined to bring about change.  They’ve enrolled our entire department in the DiSC workplace program.  DiSC stands for dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness and the program’s intent is two-fold:  (1) To help the leaders develop preferred behaviors based on best practices to develop leadership skills and a deeper understanding of themselves so that they are more effective managers and, (2) to build productive teams by helping employees deal with change, manage conflicts, and ease frustrations (DiscProfle, 2013).  While this informal activity may help alleviate some of the problems, it doesn’t touch on any of the underlying emotional and dispositional issues that persist among our staff.  Their primary issues aren’t toward each other; they’re aimed at the management teams at our level and higher.  Having an assessment report tell Lisa that she is outspoken and enjoys meeting new people isn’t going to alleviate her anger over the economic stress put on her family when her pay was reduced 30% six months ago.  Likewise, for Jake, a manager, to read that he has a tendency to speak more than he listens is not going to trigger the realization that Lisa’s pay was unfairly reduced because she has the knowledge required of her position and has been with the organization for 21 years.  She lacks a college degree, but she knows her system’s processes better than anyone in the department–she’s the top go-to person when things don’t function as expected; but that wasn’t enough to cause Jake to step in and prevent Lisa’s pay from being cut.  I have no idea what the outcome of this exercise will be, but “hat’s off” to the management team for at least caring enough to try.

 

 

Reference

DiscProfile.  (2011).  Everything disc.  Personality Profile Services, Inc.  Retrieved from www.discprofile.com on September 7, 2013.