Avenues for employee complaints seem to be closed
By Dan Bobinski
Recently I had the privilege of attending a workshop presented
by Patricia Latham Ball, a principal at Management Northwest, which
is a legal resource for employers. Ball is a former Ada County
(Idaho) Deputy Prosecutor in employment law who determined it would
be more noble to help companies steer clear of trouble rather than
prosecute them for getting into it.
One of the biggest problems in the workplace, according to
Ball, is that two thirds of employees say that they are unhappy in
their jobs, yet they have no avenue for voicing their concerns or
lodging a complaint.
The reasons for employee unhappiness varies, but a primary
root is that companies do not adhere to a defined set of standards.
Some are too forgiving of employee misconduct, while others are
managed by people who themselves overstep boundaries and could care
less about rules.
"The result," according to Ball, "is that people have become
more rude." And that rudeness is being tolerated within companies
due to lax standards. After employees have been surrounded by
rudeness for a while, it is quite easy for them to feel like
they're being harassed. Combine that with no clearly-defined avenue
for them to complain about what they feel isn’t right in
their workplace, and their next logical step is to file a
harassment claim.
Unfortunately, this chain of events creates even more problems
for employers, because harassment claims are required to be
investigated by the human rights commission.
I found myself nodding in agreement with Ball’s
description of this problem, and also with her solution: Managers
need to be trained better in their roles and responsibilities as
managers. They need to be proactive in training and equipping their
own employees, to hold people to accountability, and to discipline
employees who aren't performing.
But the responsibility for gaining skills to do those things
does not rest with the managers. It’s the leaders of an
organization who must set expectations, provide the training, and
also set the example by doing these very things with their
supervisors and middle managers.
At the same time, I acknowledge that getting everyone on the
same page and talking specifics about what’s needing to be
done can be a daunting management task. It requires a functional,
user-friendly performance management system.
Unfortunately, most of what we see in performance management
is static, annual performance reviews. Rare is the company that
uses them, and even more rare is the company that uses them well.
It’s for this reason I’ve become a fan of what I
consider to be an upcoming trend: Online, interactive performance
management systems.
One such system that impresses me is KeyneLink from
Keyne Insight (www.keyneinsight.com). It’s a comprehensive,
interactive approach to performance management that I think will
have HR managers and business owners saying
“Finally!”
Wayne Nelsen, the man who came up with the idea for KeyneLink,
says that he wanted to create something beyond a static performance
appraisal. “Most performance appraisals get glossed over and
then ignored until the following year. But this system compels
people to stay focused and accountable.”
After seeing a demonstration of how it works, Nelson is not
spouting hyperbole when he says that their “step-by-step
implementation guide helps to ensure that no important stone is
left unturned.”
Nelsen’s system is scalable for individuals, teams,
departments, and even entire organizations. And, I have little
doubt that this new approach to performance management will be
commonplace in relatively short order. Systems like this are
web-based and use automated email reminders, so they’re not
only accessible from anywhere, they take all the guesswork out of
scheduling meetings and tracking progress.
Remember, the problem as presented by Ball is employees not
feeling like they have an avenue to voice their concerns or lodge a
complaint. And her solution is spot on: If employees had regularly
scheduled meetings with their managers and the core topics of those
meetings covered all aspects of a person’s job,
wouldn’t communication doors be open? And wouldn’t
employees have an avenue to discuss any injustices they might be
sensing?
The problem as I see it is managers and leaders who
won’t take the time to implement such systems. Unfortunately,
such neglect is akin to not doing maintenance on one’s car or
any other piece of equipment. Pushing machinery to the limits
for maximum production without taking time for maintenance always
results (and I emphasize ‘always’) in worn-out
machinery with significantly lower levels of production – or
no production at all.
