Dear Ammar,

We have a continuous feud between management and team members at the company where I work.  Everything management does is interpreted as against the employees.  Even when management does something for them, they take it as a selfish act that does not deserve recognition.  Being a manager, I am not really sure why employees are behaving this way.  We are going out of our way most of the time to attend to their needs and create a healthy working environment for them.  When a group of them has a struggle with management, everybody knows about it and they start giving him advice on how to deal with us.  They even indirectly start saying things implying indirectly their dissatisfaction with our actions.  Things are getting worse and they are affecting the productivity of the employees.

How can we stop this from deteriorating any further?

Regards,

Manager

Dear Manager,

The organization and its management is responsible to build a healthy relationship with its employees based on fairness and trust.  Under lack of such relationship, things can go haywire for everybody, resulting in an unhealthy workplace for team members and poor productivity and results for management.

To remedy the existing situation, it is a good idea to devise strategies and tactics that will address the long term as well as the long term aspects of the problem.

On the long term, management must start by having a strong conviction that the company management and employees must work as one for the mutual benefit of the company and its people.  They must recognize the contributions of their teams and be willing to take them on as a trusted partner in making the company a successful one.  If management does not have such attitude, then how can one expect employees to have it?  Employees’ attitudes are a mirror of their managers’.  If management is trusting and fair, then employees will be trusting and fair.  The myth that employees will never be loyal to the company, and they do not care about their organization is part of a very old, almost extinct school.  Employees will care if you allow them to care as management.  For example, an executive I know always boasts in meetings about the achievements of the organization and its management in front of employees as if they are completely detached from the achievement.  As if they never contributed an iota to it.  It is all him and his managers, not the team and their sweat and blood.  How can such a group have loyalty to their organization? He looks at them as upper class used to look at “the commons” of the dark ages Europe.  If management has such attitudes towards employees, a company can never achieve excellence and can never create partnership between employees and management.

Therefore, management must recognize the fact that for trust to be strengthened, an organization needs guiding principles and values that spread confidence in management and their intents towards their team members.  Meet with the managers and work together on identifying areas of improvement as related to trust and fairness.  Ask everyone to be candid and not to try to tip toe around the problem, or try to blame the employees themselves.  Trust me on this: this is a management problem, not an employee’s one.  Work together with your managers to create an action plan that will help improve the level of trust and improve management’s actions and attitudes towards employees, moving towards building trust and adopting fairness.  Bring in a consultant if need be to help you be objective in researching the problem and in using best practices when devising a solution.

Once agreed upon, the organizational principles as related to fairness and trust should be clearly documented, communicated, and adhered to by management through their statements and behavior, under all circumstances.  For example, saying that a company values its employees as its most important asset would be meaningless if not practiced by its managers.  This practice should not be left to be ad-hoc, but the company should create policies and procedures for translating that guiding principle into action on the corporate grounds, and ensure it is felt by the employees.  Furthermore, managers must be trained on how to implement the guideline in their statements, decisions, and interactions with employees.

In the beginning, this will be tough, especially if employees are not used to this kind of behavior from management.  to them, it will initially look like a trap.  So, be prepared for some skepticism from employees at the beginning.   The important thing is not to let that discourage you into stopping your improvement efforts.  Instead, work harder with your managers to show employees your good intentions. 

Ask each manager to meet with each individual employee, then with her group to discuss these new policies and how employees feel about them.  Ask employees for their contribution to these policies and communicate their suggestions and feedback to HR.  Also, implement some of their suggestions in your own department if that is feasible. 

Then, hold regular company level meetings and allow open communication between employees and management during these meetings.  It is important that you do this in small groups first, before you do it at the company level.

All through this, remember that a company has its strategy and objectives, and that these must be worked on diligently by team members.  Nothing should take away from that primary focus.  The whole idea behind the improvement efforts is to help employees achieve the company objectives in a healthy environment that is motivating and fulfilling. 

 Another word of caution here.  It is important not to make management’s sole goal as making employees happy at any cost.  That would be dangerous and very short sighted.  Employees might opt for short term solutions and quick fixes that will make them happy for a couple of weeks, and then it is back to the same old situation.  This also might result in employees getting the wrong message.  Instead, fairness should be the basis for any action as part of this plan.  It should be fair to the company, management, and the employees.  So, giving out aimless rewards and raises to show good intent by management might not be a good idea.  However, improvement actions are acceptable, if they were part of a well studied plan of providing adequate compensation to those who are unfairly paid. 

For this to work there has to be strong conviction by management that fairness and trust is the only way to go for a better future of the company. 

Good luck.