How to Create Positive Workplace Attitudes
Attitudes in the workplace generally stem from job satisfaction and morale; therefore, the key to creating positive attitudes among employees begins with determining why there may be room for improvement. The underlying reasons for job satisfaction and morale typically include communication issues, employee dissatisfaction with leadership, poor working conditions and the feeling of being unappreciated. The good news is that you can turn around your workforce with carefully planned strategy.
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Instructions
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Observe your employees for a period of time long enough to see what types of problems exist. You might witness strained relationships between employees and managers or poor relationships among employees in the same department. If you see interdepartmental stress, there may be issues concerning the transfer of product or responsibility between two or more departments.
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Discuss ways to evaluate workplace issues with the human resources manager or employee-relations specialist. Employment-relations specialists are skilled in assessing employee concerns and formulating ways to resolve them. With a dedicated human resources department, you can conduct a survey on your own; however, you may need the occasional assistance of a human capital consultant. If you see that problems in the workplace at a critical level, it's wise to bring in an expert.
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Compose a list of employee activities you witnessed during your observation. Sort the issues according to areas such as management versus employee, employee versus employee, or department versus department. You may need to tackle each category separately if the workplace attitudes are very apparent and slowing productivity.
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Schedule focus group discussions in which five to seven employees will participate. Create groups of employees separate from leadership; employees may be extremely reluctant to share dissatisfaction in the presence of their supervisor or manager. Explain to each focus group that input cannot remain confidential because you need to address issues raised. You can, however, ensure anonymity. You must not disclose the names of employees who provide candid, honest feedback that may not sit well with your supervisors and managers.
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Refer to the list you constructed based on your observations, and form your focus group questions from the issues you've seen during your walk-around in the workplace. While using your list as a guide, don't discourage focus group participants from elaborating on issues they believe are important to raising morale and improving relationships in the workplace. Assemble the notes from your focus groups, and combine employee concerns according to management complaints, employee-to-employee concerns and departmental issues.
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Schedule meetings with groups of employees, supervisors and manager to discuss feedback obtained from the focus groups. Ask each group to suggest methods that will improve the workplace. Involving the entire workforce to come up with a resolution demonstrates your confidence in adult workers who are capable of addressing and resolving issues independently. Continue to monitor employee concerns. If you don't see gradual improvement, work with an employee-relations specialist to develop a systematic way to collect feedback, analyze results and develop actions plans for improving morale and increasing job satisfaction.
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