Introduction - there are a whole range of 'softer' management issues which are an essential part of creating a productive and motivated workforce and health and safe workplace. Typically business start-ups employ just a handful of staff. Therefore dealing with workplace management issues are essential in ensuring the business can grow successfully. This article highlights a few key workplace management issues including the regulations relating to health and safety, ensuring equality in the workplace, how to understand and influence staff motivations, workplace bullying and how to recognise workplace stress...
Workplace Health and Safety Regulations - there is a whole myriad of workplace health and safety regulations and laws in the United Kingdom. Most of these are covered in The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 and have been more recently supplemented with a range of other Statutory Acts of law. The legislation defines the term 'workplace' which applies to whole range of working environments including factories, offices, hospitals, hotels, factories and the public outdoor areas. The legislation also covers both self-employed as well as employees.
It is essential you seek legal advice when establishing company policies related to health and safety and how they impact how you run your business. As a business owner you will need to assess thoroughly a whole range of physical aspects of your business to ensure your compliant with the latest regulations in areas such as lighting, cleanliness and waste management, work space dimensions, ventilation, temperature control, equipment maintenance, building stability, dangerous substances, windows, employee conveniences and washing facilities, drinking water, changing areas, and canteens and restaurants.
Equality and Workplace Diversity - employers need to treat people equally in the workplace. Employees must have the same equal opportunities so that there is no form of deliberate or accidental discrimination. Equality and diversity in the workplace is underpinned in law by the European Union Council Directive (2000/78/EC) which establishes a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation. In states employers may not discriminate against employees on the basis of race, age, religious beliefs, ethnicity or sexual orientation. The British workforce is already an incredibly rich and diverse mixture of skills and nationalities from all over the world, reflecting the UK's multicultural society and ethnic workplace diversity.
Treating people fairly and equally throughout employment practice should be common sense to most businesses. Unfortunately prejudice and racial discrimination still occur (despite advances in UK employment laws). For example survey after survey show that older job applicants are less likely to receive an interview invitation compared to younger applicants. Some managers are reticent to employ older job applicants knowing retirement age (hence pension costs) loom in the near future. Likewise much of the low-paid part-time work in tertiary sectors is carried out by women and immigrants from the European Union. There are many news reports of unscrupulous employers flouting Working Time and Minimum Wage laws in these low paid employment sectors. So to stay within the law always seek professional legal advice plus promote good practice avoid a 'them and us' work culture. Champion strong managerial leadership that promotes teamwork, fairness and choice in all areas of the workplace.
Workplace Morale and Staff Motivation - the job of management is to motivate employees to implement the objectives of the business. However motivating individuals can sometimes be a challenging and difficult task. Everyone has their own hopes, dreams and aspirations and are hence motivated in entirely different ways. We all need a pay check, yet study after study shows that individual's motivations are also influenced by a large number of non financial considerations.
Only by getting to know the personalities and hopes of your employees, can you understand their motivations. For instance many people crave status from their peers, other desire career enhancement and challenges. Others may be motivated by recognition of achievements from their boss. By praising and listening and coaching your team-mates, team spirit can be fostered, and employees are more likely to share their aspirations with you. How employees feel about the workplace determines how motivated they will be. So don't underestimate the powerful link between satisfied employees and high productivity.
As a manager of a small company leading and motivating staff is essential. This in turn leads to increased loyalty and personal commitment from your team members. Only through using strong motivational skills can you hope to improve your staff recruitment and retention, inspire creativity, greater levels of personal productivity and improve your company's reputation. Remember that it's not just about pay rises and bonus's that motivate your team. To get the workforce working you will need to:-
Team meetings and offsite teambuilding events can be a great way to bring people together who ordinarily would not have the chance to get out of their daily grinding routines. When people work together in a new team they do no want to let each other down. Challenging and fun team building tasks creates healthy debate and empowers teams to get into the spirit of the team working together as a group. Exercises or team games can also lead to competitiveness between individual teams which can also motivate team members to work together to win. By getting everyone involved in the process you will be encourage and unite people that may not ordinarily have the chance to express their views or feel part of the team in their daily office routine.
Sometimes, offering more workplace status, (via an increase in responsibilities and job title) may reinvigorate a de-motivated employee. Small teams can become quickly de-motivated if one member bears some kind of grudge or has a negative attitude or is simply lazy and unhelpful. As a small business owner, it is your responsibility to find out the root causes of de-motivation and address it before it infects other team members like a disease. Sometimes serious workplace bullying may be the root cause of low morale and should therefore be carefully investigated and resolved...
Workplace Bullying - workplace bullying is not entirely different from school ground bullying. It may occur unintentionally sometimes in organisations that have a highly aggressive target or sales driven cultural. From early on in childhood most people know somebody or may have experienced playground bullying themselves. The effect on the victims can be devastating (whether a child or grown up employee). Loneliness, fear, low self-esteem and depression can combine with the desire regained some type of control.
Many studies have shown that consistent long term bullying can lead to eating disorders as victims struggle to regain some type of control in their lives. Workplace bullying can result in workplace health problems, stress, low team morale and a culture of distrust between management and staff. Under The Human Rights Act 1948 everyone should have the right to free and equal dignity as human beings and should not be subjected to interference into their private lives, reputation or honour. Your personal conduct as a manager or business owner must be in accordance with respect this critical statute and its many interpretations.
Workplace Stress - workplace stress is an increasingly challenging problem for employers keen to improve employee productivity. Managers must tread a fine line between on the one hand motivating staff (by providing positive stimulus to meet challenging targets) and on the other hand by piling on so much work that staff feel pressured, unable to cope and stressed. Stress is a perception and state of mind. However if continued over a long period can develop into mental illnesses which can lead to absenteeism and staff leaving. Different people react differently to challenging and difficult situations and therefore perceive stress in different ways. Some people thrive on challenges and competition while others see change and additional challenges as a burden for them to overcome. Likewise if people who thrive on pressure are not given jobs and responsibilities worthy of their talents, they can also become stressed. These type of people feel they do not have enough control over their own destiny in terms of making sensible commonsense decisions.
The challenge for today's managers is to communicate and delegate in ways in which is sympathetic to the type of employees they are responsible for managing. Managers need to consider their staffs technical capabilities and experiences, educational background, personal circumstances and other work pressures when setting objectives, providing feedback on appraisals and delegating tasks on a day-to-day basis.
Sometimes managers can misread the signs of stress building up in their team members. The main symptoms include anxiety, nervous behaviour, short temper, mood swings, sleeplessness, lack of concentration, indecision and general depression. These indicators may not necessarily be stress-related but relate to factors outside of work. Stressed out employees can have a negative effect on the rest of the team in terms of creating divisions, low morale, customer dissatisfaction and increased workload due to absenteeism.
Left unchecked workplace stress can lead to serious mental health problems such as depression which may require specialist medical treatment and care. This can lead to a vicious circle of symptoms such as eating disorders and sleep deprivation. The longer the person is left untreated the greater the chance that they wont be able to separate the underlying cause of the mental health problem from the workplace stress itself.