Types of employees who can frustrate an organization

Here are some quick pointers to know who can be frustrating employees that can disappoint an organization and few ways to deal with them.

Gossip Types.

1 in every 5 employee’s gets involved in gossip. I want to name them as “High end Gossipers”. They would be spending easily 2-3 hours each day out of 8-9 hours of working. They hear, see and speak gossip. If you pay attention, you’ll see that certain employees are always in the middle of these discussions, and often initiate them. “Gossips always know—or think they know—what is going on at the company, and they aren't shy about forming their opinions and seeking out other people’s opinions,”

Solution: Gossips can’t be eliminated. The smarter approach is to use gossip as a tool to encourage all your employees to be better. As a manager, accept that your employees will gossip about you.  Use your ‘star power’ to demonstrate behaviour that you want to see in your company. Do what you say you are going to do, be open and transparent, and build trust. The more your employees observe and comment on the way you do things, the more likely they will follow your lead. Important here is, as a Manager you got to do these tasks continuously and ensure you are influencing few people around you positively then and there on the floor.

Complaining type:

Employees in this category are uninterested in their work and their workplace. They are only interested in carrying pay cheques and clearly does not want to be there. Their negativity and disengagement with other colleagues are very intense and contagious.

Caution: When you deal with such employee yourself might end up becoming like that sometimes.

Solution: Best way to deal with them is by showing kindness/humility. Start appreciating them if they have done a good job periodically. Sit with them one on one to understand about their unhappiness factor. Ask them what you can do to ensure they enjoy their work more and more. Continue to communicate with them, listen to them and recognize their efforts.

Over Achiever types

In any company you will find employees who would have achieved their targets/deadlines more than actuals. They usually need very less hand holding from anybody. If you give them a project you can be rest assured it would get executed certainly. While they are important for you, you should also know that they may not enjoy other employees overachieving. Sometimes overachievers are impatient. They may not work well in situations where they have to strictly follow orders and processes. And they can cause jealousy and demotivation in their less overachieving co-workers.

Solution: Give them an opportunity to coach. Give them challenging projects to execute but don’t micro-manage. You can review them, but don’t dictate and order. Don’t over appreciate them at the expense of others.

Sucking types:

They fall in a category where they tend to be hard working but they are just not hard working. They have a lot of show off characters. Usually they work far lesser than an average employee who is working hard. They don’t even realize that they are sucking up the environment in the organization.

Solution: As a Manager, don’t get sucked up for their drama. You should be polite to them but don’t reward. Ask lot of data before they want to prove it to you verbally. Discourage their behaviours subtly.

Lazy Type:

Most Managers won’t been keen to work with this category. They normally postpone tasks. Their objective is to only do bare minimum. The word “stretch” is not visible in their dictionary.  They are usually dullish in their body language. They start late to office and reach late to office. They spend their maximum time at office in non-work related activities.

Solution: Don’t terminate them because you got irritated or tempted. Instead, see if you can create that sense of urgency. For Lazy types, sometime they are in need of a process/method/structure to their work. Set goals which are emotionally appealing so that they can relate these with their interests and strengths.

Playful Type:

These are the folks who make lot of fun of others. While they create humour, it’s disruptive too. They are good at playing pranks. This is for sure disturbance.

Solution: Load them with lot of work because they are usually clever. Review them. Give them tight deadlines to achieve their goals. Give them warnings if they tend to behave disruptive.

Comments and Suggestions are welcome.

Confidence Versus Control

We are in the modern age of managing people. Hence I thought I should attempt to write about two important words “Control” and “Confidence”. This should help all Managers to decide on their Leadership style at their work place.

In the modern world, competition has increased like crazy. Multiple companies exist, where they develop similar or path breaking products with innovative features to beat the competition. Behind all these developments, there are employees who execute these action plans. As a Manager, what is your management style?

I am sure every organization is in need of Engaged Employees who are highly productive, hard-working and passionate about their job. If you have such employees in your team then start thinking how you as a Manager can bring them to your side of table. Don’t micro manage them – instead give challenges, create think tanks. Reviews have to be extremely creative than just numbers. How many times as a Manager have you asked your Engaged Employee what they like and what motivates them? Trust me, it is something beyond money to retain Engaged employees.

Hence the word Confidence comes here. Start replacing Control to Confidence. Move in the opposite direction of control. Give more and more chance to listen from your team members. Ensure there is a fee environment around them to execute tasks. Try imparting great knowledge to Engaged employees. Give opportunities for team members to speak to a customer, speak to a senior individual, and empower them to take initiatives for the team /for the organization. Allow them to take decisions. Back their attempts and help them for achieving perfectness. Enrich collaboration. All these are some powerful solutions to build CONFIDENCE.  You will see great results as Managers. All said, it’s all about employees who drive innovation, positive energy, and drive goals for an organization, not Management.

So, let us begin our 2016 with Confidence building and let go Control attitude.