How Do You Love Your Employees When They Are Unloveable?

Kristin Allaben
February 9, 2021
employee morale, employee performance, Lead with Love, Leadership, self-awareness, Workplace Culture

Employees are distracted, not bringing their best to their day. They’re flippant and aggravating, and management is meeting them at this level. It has created an intolerable workplace.

Sound familiar?

So how do you love your employees when they’re unloveable (and that’s the way a lot of employees are acting at this moment)?

VIDEO: How to Love the Unloveable Employee

In line with our theme Lead with Love this month, our CEO and Certified Business and Executive Coach Jay Forte shares his thoughts in a short video on what you can do — as managers and leaders — to guide the unloveable employee back into being loveable through a culture that supports them and holds them accountable.

Watch the video.

Consider reading Staying Optimistic and Hopeful in Down Times

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Corporate

How to Get the People Thing Right for Your Business

Kristin Allaben
January 29, 2020
Business Coaching, hiring, Management, Workplace Culture

We all want to work in a place where every employee feels appreciated and valued. Where employee education is encouraged. Where high-performing employees are the norm. Yet for many, it seems more a fantasy than reality. Why is getting the people thing right so elusive? Because we are stuck in old unproductive habits about employees and we are not using some important lessons from other parts of the business.

Let’s first focus on customers. You can’t get it wrong for a customer – their loyalty is important to your business success. To ensure you don’t get it wrong for your customers, you have to get it right for your employees.

There are three, non-negotiable areas every organization has to get right before you can add the something extra: hiring, workplace culture and management.

Hiring – Bring in the right people. Get your approach to hiring right by having a process that focuses on consistently hiring people who are capable and successful doing what the job requires. This shows in how you define what the job does and the attributes of someone who can do it well. This shows in building a non-conventional sourcing strategy that includes both actively searching for talent and to become an employer of choice so the best find you. This shows in changing how you interview so your interviews are prove-it-to-me events, ensuring you are clear of the candidate’s strengths and liabilities. Updating your approach to defining, sourcing and interviewing is key to bringing in the right people. They can’t perform well if they are in roles that do not connect with their abilities and interests, or if it doesn’t help them develop their potential.

Workplace culture – A workplace that values, develops and engages. Get it right by providing a workplace that takes the well-hired employees and engages and empowers them to learn, grow, own their performance, contribute and make an impact. This can include ensuring:

Employees have the tools and resources needed to do their jobs well.
Employees are clear of their performance expectations.
Employees receive recurring performance feedback that focuses on applauding good performance and improving areas of challenging performance.
Employees are routinely involved in skill and career development.
The workplace is accepting, supportive and collaborative (psychologically safe) by refusing to accept cliques, gossip, mocking, ridicule or put-downs.

Management – Have managers who think and act like coaches by guiding, supporting and encouraging instead of directing, controlling and telling. Get it right by training your managers to think and act like coaches who know how to build strong, supportive and development-focused relationships with employees. Help your managers develop greater emotional intelligence (greater self-awareness and self-management) to prepare them to create and sustain stronger and more effective relationships. This extra attention and effort managers make in their relationships is a driver of greater employee engagement and retention.

Make it your purpose to hire wisely, build an employee-focused workplace culture and train your managers to build better working relationships by helping them shift from managing to coaching. People – your people – will continue to be the greatest workplace challenge until you learn how to get it right. And until you get it right for your people, you are also challenging your ability to get it right for your customers.

Make getting the people thing right your key focus in 2020 because as your people go, so do your customers. And, as your customers go, so goes your business.

By Jay Forte

Consider reading 3 Reasons Why Your Best Employees Will Leave you (and What to Do About It)

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Corporate

Do Your Jobs Have a Value Statement?

Kristin Allaben
March 18, 2019
career, employee engagement, Job Value Statement, Workplace Culture

Consider the value jobs have in the workplace. This is larger than just getting the tasks of the job done. Do your job(s) share with your employees why they are important and what difference they make to your company, customers, community and world?

Work occupies nearly 25% of our time each week – and for some, even a greater percentage. With such a large amount of time committed to it, we want it to do more than just deliver a paycheck. We want it to help us grow, learn and become better. We want to feel valuable. We want to know that we matter. We want to know how what we do makes a difference. We want to do something important.

To meet these requirements from employees and truly create work that matters, it requires some time and attention spent on each job within your organization to clearly define the role and the impact the work has others. The most efficient way to do this is to create a Job Value Statement.

Start by picking any job in your organization. Define what the job entails (tasks, responsibilities) and the attributes an employee must have to do the job successfully. Then, create a statement that highlights the benefit or value of the job. A clear description on what the value is to the employee, the company or even the world helps create a differentiation advantage for your organization. It not only shows that you understand your employees, but it also serves as a means to attract top level talent looking for an employer that understands how to create jobs that matter.

Here are some examples of job value statements:

This role requires daily communication customers, supporting them to live confidently and independently.
This role keeps the executive team organized, supported and able to make a profound difference in the direction of the company.
This role creates products that keep our air and water clean for generations to come.
This role creates new applications to bring complex technology to everyday life.
This role ensures the organization’s financials are accurate so the organization can continue its growth and impact with customers.
This role creates a workplace culture that engages employees and cultivates their potential.

A simple, well-crafted value statement can help attract new employees and re-engage existing employees.

We all want to make a difference. Help each of your employees see their value so they are more empowered and engaged to deliver it.

Take Action
Look at each of the jobs your organization offers and define the value statement for each. Check in with those who do the job(s) to see the value they see in the role. If they have this clear, you have something to share with others. If they don’t, then you have the opportunity to change this to help them connect more personally to their role and its impact. Be sure to include your jobs’ value statements on the career center on your website and in all job postings or ads.