Find Out What’s Wrong With Employees Now | 2-Minute Video

So what’s wrong with employees?

Why aren’t they motivated? Why don’t they hit goals or meet expectations? Why won’t they tell us what’s eating away at them?

Sometimes it’s difficult to find the answers.

And unfortunately, there’s proof that employees are reluctant to tell their bosses and/or HR what’s wrong. The New York University study, “Employee Silence: Issues That Employees Don’t Communicate Upward and Why,” found 85% of employees have been in situations where they were concerned about something at work, but didn’t bring it up to the boss. 

Why the silence? Researchers said it’s often for self-protection — they may not want to appear incompetent, cause conflict within the workplace, or be seen as a complainer. And it’s not just to their boss. They often don’t want to be considered any of those things among colleagues and customers. So the silence lingers.

What’s more concerning is this: Lapses in workplace communication will likely cause other issues. A study from the Economist Intelligence Unit found poor workplace communication can lead to:

• more stress for employees (52%)
• project failure (44%)
• low employee morale (31%)
• missed performance goals (25%), and
• loss in sales (18%).

Seriously, What’s Wrong with Employees?

But what happens when you can’t figure out what’s going on with your people? You ask better questions to get them to open up a bit. Then you respond appropriately so they aren’t afraid to talk more and get issues resolved.

That’s the simple solution. Fortunately, in this episode of HRMorning’s 3-Point, we talk with an HR professional who has a battle-tested process for getting at what matters most to her employees.

Click, watch and listen for more details on how to find out what’s getting in the way of employees reaching goals or staying engaged — and then fixing those issues.

Transcript (edited for clarity):

What’s wrong with these people?

If you’re in management, you’ve probably asked yourself this a few times. Perhaps when they don’t seem motivated. Or when they don’t do what you expected. Or when they don’t tell you what’s wrong.

So what is wrong with employees?

There’s pretty much only one strategy: Find out how you can motivate and drive employees toward success.

• Ask them. That’s the first step in this 3-Point from HRMorning. Ask pointed questions on what’s good and what’s not. From there:
• Listen. You can’t help if you aren’t willing to hear their side without judgment.
• Respond. You don’t have to do exactly what they think will cure what’s wrong. But you need to do something.

Erika Tedesco, the VP of People and Culture at Diversified Automation, shows how these three steps can be successful. She asks specific questions.

Tedesco: What’s going well? What can we improve? Who should we recognize? And what should I know?

And then, guess what?

Tedesco: You have got to listen. Listening is the No. 1 thing that can improve organizations from the bottom up. I see a lot of organizations that want to start at the top and have big ideas and implement things. And it may not be what their employees want. 

Then, they found what was wrong and came up with ideas on how to make it right.

Tedesco: Well, we’re finding out people are really feeling the stress of inflation and the economy of today. And they’re looking for opportunities, not to just earn more money, but to contribute back to the organization. They’re looking for opportunities to develop their careers.

At Diversified, they used this feedback to create new training and certification opportunities. And that led to the ultimate result: They fixed what was wrong with employees.