Employee Attitudes Can Be Slow To Recover From A Company Financial Downturn

Managers would like their employees to be trusting, loyal, and committed to the organization. Unfortunately, many of today’s organizations are facing serious economic downturns which can have long-lasting effects on employee attitudes. Today’s best managers know that even if a company recovers from a serious down-turn and improves its economic performance, employee attitudes may suffer permanently and never fully recover. For example, even if the company returns to a previously solid state, employee attitudes, such as trust, loyalty, and commitment, may never recover from a downturn. Today’s best managers are aware of this phenomenon and work to improve employee attitudes long after they have helped a company to improve financially.

Source: Grunberg, L., Moore, S., Greenberg, E. S., & Sikora, P. 2008. The changing workplace and its effects: A longitudinal examination of employee responses at a large company. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44, 215-236.

Help Your Employees Feel Less Miserable About Their Job

Today’s best managers want their employees to be happy about their work. Unfortunately, many employees feel miserable on the job. Some of the main causes of employee misery are feeling anonymous, irrelevant, and as if their work can’t be measured. Typical managers don’t help employees because they: 1) keep employees at arm’s length and don’t get to know them, 2) worry about being too touchy-feely, so avoid human issues, and 3) stay too busy to take an interest and invest in helping their employees. Today’s best managers try not to make these mistakes and work hard to lessen the misery of their employees.

Source: Lencioni, P. 2008. Job anonymity: It’s a leading cause of misery. Leadership Excellence, 25, p.4.

Positive Employees Tend To Have Positive Emotions That Increase Attitudes And Performance

Today’s best managers constantly look for ways to improve employee attitudes and performance. Positive employee emotions can influence employee attitudes and behaviors. Four traits help determine whether an employee is positive or not: hope, efficacy, optimism, and resilience. Hopeful employees find multiple pathways to success. Employees with efficacy believe in their abilities to get the job done. Optimistic employees expect good things to happen to them. Resilient employees can recover easily from adversities. Being positive can influence positive employee emotions, and that can increase employee attitudes and behaviors.

Source: Avey, J. B., Wernsing, T. S., & Luthans, F. 2008. Can positive employees help positive organizational change?: Impact of psychological capital and emotions on relevant attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44, 48-70.

Work Helps Employees Maintain Their Health And Well-Being

Today’s best managers know that work is important and plays a big role in determining employees’ psychological health and well-being. When large numbers of employees lose jobs, the result is neighborhood decline, increased crime, and declines in family relationships, and even increases in substance abuse, violence, and apathy. Work helps employees: have access to resources that help ensure survival, have access to social support and personal relationships, and determine their own course and direction in life. Today’s best managers know that work is more than just a job. Work helps in the development, expression, and maintenance of employee health and well-being.

Source: Blustein, D. L. 2008, May-June. The role of work in psychological health and well-being. American Psychologist, 63, 228-240.

Be A Safe Haven To Help Employees Improve Negative Emotions At Work

One of the most common sources of negative emotions at work is the relationship between employees and their boss. Feeling badly about work for a long period of time can lead to burnout, lower job satisfaction, decreased motivation, and increased turnover. Today’s best managers know that one way to help improve employee emotions at work is to become a dependable base of security. Employees may improve their attitudes toward work if they can temporarily go to their manager for support in times of need. Today’s best managers provide employees with a safe haven where they can securely discuss and work through their emotions.

Source: Game, A. M. 2008. Negative emotions in supervisory relationships: The role of relational models. Human Relations, 61, 355-393.

Re-Wire Your Problem Employees Into Successful Employees

Many employees have hard-wired beliefs in their brain about their abilities and their performance, which can result in them being poor performers. Today’s best managers don’t give up on such employees. Instead, they try to rewire their employees’ beliefs about themselves: 1) help them to realize and acknowledge their beliefs about their performance, 2) allow the negative beliefs to surface, but then don’t act on them in the same ways as they always do, 3) help employees develop new responses to the negative feelings they have, and 4) coach employees on ways to improve skills and abilities where they feel they are lacking.

Source: Ahern, A. 2008. Fire or re-wire: Dealing with problem people. Leadership Excellence, 25/2, p. 16.

Help Employees Open Up About What They Value To Strengthen Employee Work Attitudes

Today’s best managers know that positive employee attitudes can be strengthened. Help employees uncover what values are important and not important to them, such as trust, loyalty, friendliness, reverence, etc. Then, have employees consider their important values and help them tie those values into their work attitudes. For example, if an employee values working for a successful company, then tie that value into completing a difficult work assignment. Employee attitudes that are aligned with employee values will be stronger and more resistant to change.

Source: Blankenship, K. L., & Wegener, D. T. 2008. Opening the mind to close it: Considering a message in light of important values increases message processing and later resistance to change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 196-213.