Our businesses can be treacherous areas, full of individuals with their own little lives, hopes and dreams and when these meet – there can be a lot of issues. Humans have complicated lives and can bring issues to work, what’s more they can take them home with them from the place of work.
It can be issue, after issue, after issue. That’s not good. Not good at all.
It might be easy to compare your employees to your family. They are the kids and you’re the adult. You’ll find that this approach doesn’t work – you can’t act like the mom or dad at work and you’ll find this out the hard way.
Communication is the best way of fighting problems in the workplace. The way you talk to employees can have a huge effect on how they not only perceive you, but how they will respond to you and your actions.
An open-door policy is the best way forward, truly. There’s nothing wrong at all with allowing your employees to speak to you on an ‘as and when’ basis. Your employees will value this and while you may think that it doesn’t give you the respect, authority and exclusivity that you as a boss probably deserve, it’s key. Your employees deserve to speak to you about their issues and about anything that is troubling them. If you lock yourself away, your personal office could very well develop into a metaphorical ivory tower – separating you from your workforce and putting your needs above theirs. Bad idea.
As stated earlier, our workplaces are packed full with unique individuals working in an environment which could stress them out. This is the perfect place for friction and conflict to develop in. Problems will arise in a workplace and if they are not dealt with, your team will suffer for it. If problems do linger, they can only evolve into more threatening beasts and this can cause serious issues. Problems that linger are bad for business. What’s more – your employees will see your refusal to deal with problems and could lose a lot of respect for you, especially so when it is an issue that affects them personally.
Meetings are a great way to address workplace policies and practices and a good idea for your team to help foster good communication habits. If your team feel comfortable speaking up and leaving nothing unsaid – keeping it professional of course – then you’ll be saving a lot of time. If they do have issues and queries with practices and policies instituted by yourself, then this is the best place to bring them up.
Everyone in the workplace will require time off work – from sickness, to parental leave. It’s important that you clue yourself up on the legal aspects of leave from work and don’t come down unduly harsh on employees when it is not necessary. If strict action needs to be taken, make sure you are doing it to what the law says. Legal advice should be taken on anything and everything – especially if there are areas you don’t understand, like adoptive leave – this post explains it in more detail. Make sure you do your research.
It’s your job to foster an environment where your employees are happy and productive and almost every issue can be solved with basic communication and it is better that this information is known to you before you start out, before it’s too late.
