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Are the employee retaliations preventable?
The employment relationship is more than the exchange of labor for money. Work provides a powerful structure for organizing social and cultural life. During these tough economic times, many companies are increasingly struggling with this problem and to make matters worse, due to extensive layoffs, company closures, employee retaliation claims are soaring. Even though, not every company is experiencing layoffs and yet employee retaliations are on the raise. As many years as i have been speaking on this subject, it became very evident that many organizations and most department heads lack in basic emotional understanding and conflict resolution skills. If they had their way, most organizations rather hire people who do not like to rock the boat, passive and compliant. Can you imagine putting an employment ad asking conformist wanted for a position? Corporations are too busy shuffling warning memos to their employees to assert their dominance and over power employees through fear. May be this was an effective strategy around 19th century however, men and women are becoming progressively more outspoken, assertive and refuse to be treated like a herd of sheep. Instead of adjusting to the changes to make the company and its employees more productive, corporations resist to the changes by maintaining old business mind set not realizing they are constantly setting themselves up for all kinds of unnecessary lawsuits, chaos, and not to mention waste of resources. Weather the complaint is harassment or discrimination, even though the company my win the cases at the end however; they are ultimately the biggest losers. Following are the clear consequences for ill equipped organizations: Legal fees Employee morale Negative work environment mobilizing other departments Needed Additional men power handle paper work Loss of productivity There are proper and very effective steps employers can take to mitigate their risks. Training, training and training; I cannot over emphasize the importance of proper training and providing skills to all the employees to establish effective work place. And yet many companies regularly faced with different retaliations, they continue responding in the same manner. As they say the defilation of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results Create a retaliation policy Be proactive not retroactive: handle the issue as it happens, do not brush it under the rug, ignore, or manipulate the employee. CEOs Upper management;; Needs to be transparent and should be a great role model to for the rest of the company. They need to be willing to confront their rigidity, old beliefs and the issues of control. Department heads middle management; Need to develop emotional self-management skills as well as s empathy and show compassion for positive work place relationship, Positive corporate culture; Create an environment where employees are allowed to be themselves, they are no longer operating with fear, and they feel respected and needed as an individual. Document; Proper documentation will keep you focused, structured and incase of legal action you are able to show the kind of steps that you took to resolve the problem. Weekly department process meetings; this has nothing to do with employee performance or work agenda. It is platform of being themselves. This is one of the most successful processes any department can implement within the organization with huge outcome. This process allows everyone to get honest and able to express concerns as well as suggestions. Solution oriented organizations and well trained department heads understand the importance of being proactive when it comes to diffusing issues, rather than keep putting out fires.
Dr. Simon Casey Health Care Consultant, Speaker, Author, Therapist.
Tags: angry female employee, female employee conflict resolution, Female employee problems, female employee retaliation