Are there cliques in your organisation? Do your staff often call in sick or stay off work regularly? Do you have a high turnover of staff members? Then it is time to examine the behaviours in your business because it may be a toxic environment. But how do you detox your business? Let’s look at six behaviours to stop today to detox your business.
Behaviour 1: Taking it personally
Do you believe everything that happens in your business is a personal attack on you or it is because of something you did? Sorry but unfortunately not everything in life that happens is a result of you. Sometimes people’s actions and words are more about their view of the world then about you. It is crucial that when things happen in your business you don’t take it personally. Sometimes this may be hard but consider the action and what is the lesson and then move on.
Behaviour 2: Being absent
If you have a high rate of absenteeism in your workforce then you need to find the cause. It could range from unrealistic deadlines to an employee feeling harassed in the workplace. If you see that your deadlines are regularly being missed or your staff need to put in an exorbitant amount of overtime, then you need to review your processes. What action needs to be taken to meet the deadlines?
If your staff are being harassed or harmed in any way while at the workplace, they need an avenue where they can raise their concerns without feeling punished. This could be through an anonymous communication channel where they feel their complaints would be seriously considered.
Behaviour 3: Micromanaging your staff
Managers tend to micromanage their staff when they don’t trust them to do the tasks they have laid out in the brief for the position. Micromanaging harms both the manager and the staff member. For the manager, it causes them to feel overwhelmed because they must focus closely on the day-to-day tasks rather than strategizing on how to take the business forward. For the employee, they lose confidence in their skills and become demotivated to perform in the position you hired them for.
Behaviour 4: Having favourites
Yes, in your business there may be people who you get on well with, and others who you don’t see eye to eye but don’t play favourites. By showing favour to some employees and not others, you can cause a lot of tension in your workplace. It may even cause those employees who are not favoured to underperform or to report you to the CCMA for unfair labour practices.
Behaviour 5: Being a bully
Aggressive behaviour towards your staff or between employees can harm your work environment terribly. By using intimidation and scare tactics, you may get your employees to do the work, but they will not be effective as they will fear making mistakes. Your employee’s confidence may also be harmed, and they may constantly bug you to ensure they are doing their job well. You should coach your employees through mistakes so that they can grow in their position and become a better employee on the other side.
Behaviour 6: Communicating badly
Many arguments or misunderstandings could be prevented if individuals would learn to communicate clearly with each other. By having a good feedback loop in your business, you will learn early on what is making your employee disgruntled and you can clearly lay out your expectations for your employee.
By working to solve these six behaviour patterns, you will detox your business and grow a healthy work culture for everyone who is involved.
Proudly brought to you by the NSBC