How to Improve Employee & Management Relations
Managers often complain about employees who have bad attitudes. While it's true the occasional employee may not be pleasant to work with, most people do not go to work each day with the intention of creating conflict with their managers. Workers have claimed for decades that it is the manager who determines whether employee and management relationships are successful. However, it is only recently that scientific studies have found those workers to be correct.
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Instructions
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Accept responsibility for your role in building effective employee and management relations. A 2004 study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that worker attitudes are directly related to the effectiveness of managers to relate to their employees. The study also found that workplace attitudes in a specific location persist over time. In fact, previously happy new hires who were introduced into a negative workplace were later found to be infected by the bad attitudes around them. To improve employee and management relations in your workplace, you must accept the fact that you and other managers may be responsible for the seemingly bad attitudes around you.
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Assess your corporate culture. Perform a cultural audit to determine what your current culture is and where you would like it to be. Survey employees to determine their attitudes on a variety of aspects of the workplace from compensation and communication to the decision-making process and managerial attitudes toward workers.
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Compare the results of your cultural audit to the espoused values of the organization. In other words, are the organization's values truly what managers say and think they are? If the organization has a mission statement that says the business values honesty and integrity, do managers fulfill that mission? If your cultural audit shows a significant gap between the organization's espoused values and its actual values, this may be the root cause of poor employee and management relations.
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Set the example. Remember that old adage, "Actions speak louder than words." If necessary, change your own management style to align yourself with the organization's mission. Show your workers that you set the same high standards for yourself that you set for them. If your organization values honesty and integrity, then you must set the example for honesty and integrity. If you expect employees to follow through and do what they say they will do, then you must be willing to do the same. The best way to improve employee and management relations is to set an example that your workers will be inspired to follow.
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References
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