How to Deal with Unhappy Employees

This world has become a rat race. Companies worldwide have been pressuring their employees to complete a given task or work overtime. This practice has affected the employees a lot, and they have been facing serious issues regarding this.

This even affects their work-life as well as their personal life. Their mental health suffers a lot due to the tremendous stress and anxiety. It even hampers their relationship with their boss or managers, who seem to have difficulty dealing with this.

How To deal with disgruntled employees:

Avoid ignoring situation

You can feel your employees are unsatisfied with the work they do. You must pay them due attention and try to understand their feelings from their point of view. You should not take this situation for granted as it may create a bigger future problem.

You should try to understand the things disturbing your employees and try to change them to make them happy.

Employees are the ones who form the structure of your company, and to maintain their sanity is somewhat your responsibility too and so do it!

Try approaching your employees with kindness and empathy

You should understand that the employees working for you are always under tremendous pressure, stress, and anxiety.

You as a person should try to understand what they feel, and this could not be done unless and until you approach them and mix in them freely.

You need to approach them kindly without any rudeness or arrogance. As you will talk with them and try to understand what is going on within their mind, you will be able to understand the problems they are facing, and automatically you feel empathy towards them.

Always keep in mind that you should empathize with them without showing sympathy, as it will make them feel weak and more vulnerable.

Try listening to their problems and offer them a solution

Employees feel that their problems are not heard and their demands are not met. This is one of the major causes why employees feel unhappy. They feel all their hard work and efforts are going to waste as you do not hear their problems.

You need to sit with them and listen to their problems and maybe you will be able to offer some solutions to those problems based on your experience.

These solutions might solve some of your employees’ problems and help them to relieve some of the burdens from their shoulders and bring balance into their life.

Maintain the privacy

Confidentiality is a big thing, and when it involves employees, it should be kept within both of you. Employees feel that they will be made fun of if they share their problems, and everyone will think he is weak.

To rule out these assumptions many a time, the employees hesitate to share and talk their hearts out.

You need to understand that when you are talking with your employees, they are bound to feel shy and might not even open up to you.

So you should make them believe that everything between both of you should be confidential and private so that they can consider you a safe place.

Consider the bigger picture

You should understand it is not only the workplace stress which is causing them to feel unhappy. There are indeed several factors that contribute to this. It might be their troubled relationships with their friends or family, the feeling of being left out.

You should realize that your workplace stress is indeed one of the factors which are making them feel pressured and keeping them always under stress.

So you should look at the reasons which are harming your employees and making the environment in the workplace always in a bit of tension.

Know all the legal procedures

You might want to help your employees, but they do not take their advice with all the correct intentions. Some might be cunning enough to create chaos out of the whole scenario even though you try to mix in with them and try to understand their problems.

You should know in detail about all the legal procedures and keep it handy as to when to use them.

You know already that your good intentions to improve the relationship did not work at all, so when they are taking undue advantage of your behavior, you should also consider taking legal action against it.

Related: Some Things That Buy Happiness

Try being impartial and also professional

When trying to understand your employees, you need to note that you need to be impartial, but you should also maintain all the professional boundaries.

All the employees should have the same value in your eyes, whether it is your son-in-law or daughter.

Employees should know that there is a certain limit beyond which they cannot expect; this just means that you have set a boundary between both of you, which is needed because when you are in a professional relationship, you need to maintain a boundary so that your dignity and respect is maintained.

Try writing down all the grievances

You can’t remember all the grievances that your employees have mentioned. It is also a notion that when you write something down, it is considered to be an important task to you.

Employees feel more heard when you document all the problems that your employees are facing.

As you document all the grievances, you start brainstorming regarding solutions that you might provide to solve all the problems.

This even helps you in modifying the workplace environment and make it more accessible for the employees.

Avoid ignoring the cause if you aren’t in control of it

Employees may be sad, or unhappy due to reasons which are not in your hands. This may include an upcoming promotion or how they were misled in a project.

In these cases, you should show all due interest in their problems, even if it is not in their hands; this will show them that you have the urge to mend things.

You should try to listen to their grudges, too, and see what the most you can do professionally, not out of sympathy, is. This try of yours will prove to your employees that you are also looking after their problems and catering to their needs as required.

Accept that you are not capable of helping everyone

You know that you are progressing with the right intentions, but this does not mean that you will be able to offer a solution to every problem that has been proposed; if you could, then you would have become an ethereal person. So you need to accept that all the problems are not in your hands.

There might be some discrepancies in the base of the system, and in those cases, you have nothing to do as it becomes a matter of the company you are working for.

These decisions are very sensitive and could also be used against you at times, and so it is better to keep out of those decisions.

Avoid assuming that the problem is over

After one motivational speech, you should not assume that all the problems are over or taken care of because the problems the employees have addressed are some deep-rooted grievances, and one meeting or speech cannot fix it.

You need to check up on them every month and see how it is progressing, or you need to adapt any other way to solve these problems.

This method will make all your employees believe you are not exploiting them and look after their grievances and needs when needed. This is will positively boost the environment in your workplace.

Try understanding the most common cause for being unhappy

You might feel everything is under control, but when you work in a big team, it is bound to get chaotic at times as you cannot meet everyone’s needs. You need to look at everyone’s problems and note down the common causes of unhappiness.

To your amazement, you might find some causes which previously you have not even considered, but they are a serious issue for your employees.

For example, work hours after 9 pm is a common cause for which your employees are unhappy as they are not getting an adequate amount of rest and sleep.

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Notice for office bullying

This is one of the major causes of office stress and anxiety among employees. You should look into this factor with utmost interest.

People with their dreams, along with their hard work, come to join a company or get a job, the other employees may not know their struggles, and they might even start cracking jokes on them.

This makes the whole workplace scenario a toxic environment where your employees cannot show their fullest potential because of their constant fear of getting judged.

You should take strict measures if such things are done at your workplace because the blame will only go down to you.

Attentive if there is any sexual harassment

Equality is coming slowly, but you should keep in mind that even now, a major section of the world objectifies women to a great extent.

They believe in old, medieval societal norms. Even after crossing all of these, many women secure their places for a job where they are looked down upon or, in some cases, even sexually harassed.

You should be attentive regarding this scene and keep note if any such incidents occur as they degrade the morale and confidence of every woman working there, thereby making it a scary place to work. It can even become a serious issue if it is not taken care of.

Try having a disciplinary plan

It might sound a bit strict to you, but if discipline is maintained in an office, it gets somewhat better at times as all the employees are under the notion of all the strict boundaries they have been imposed. It keeps the employees from making any chaos in the office.

There are some problems that you will not be able to solve, or they are not in your hands, or it is just personal. In such cases, you should know that you have tried your best, but it is not in your hands if you are not able to do something.

In such cases, if the employee continues to be rude and troublesome, then you need to impose stricter discipline on them as it will also show that you can be professional even after solving your problems.

Be respectful to all your employees

Employees are also human beings who must be treated with respect. They should not feel exploited by any higher officials. They constitute a major part of the office as they do the majority of the work.

You should keep this in mind when you are approaching them. They should also feel they are given due respect in your company so that they can give in their full-hearted efforts in all the work they have been assigned.

Thus making it fruitful for yourself and also making the atmosphere better for all the employees. It will automatically boost their confidence and also their urge to work more.

Try being an encouraging leader

A leader is someone who will guide their employees to motivate and encourage them in putting their steps forward for their career or anything fruitful.

This personality of a leader will make the employees feel that they are heard and that there is someone who will help them in their difficult times.

You should adopt this personality as this will make your employees they can expect solutions to the problems they face in their life, and also, you will always guide them towards a successful career.

This emotion will automatically instill within them a feeling of trust and respect for you, which will help you a lot in managing their grievances in due course.

Related: Discover Happiness Within you

Maintain your cool

You should always keep a check on your temperament when you are dealing with your employees.

As this a sensitive issue, you need to listen to all the grudges your employees face even if it is silly and not in your hands; at such times, you may lose your temper as suddenly all the problems burden you.

In this situation, you need to understand the things which need to be addressed first and solve the less complicated ones.

Once you feel that you can solve their problems, you will feel that you can even solve the complicated ones if you deal with them with a cool mind and so on.

It will take time

Problems that the employees are facing may be something that has been the culture of your workplace for a very long time, even before you joined, so in such cases, you should note that those deeply rooted problems will take time to be solved and can’t be solved as easily as others.

You need to be patient and slowly take a few steps forward to eradicate those problems. It will indeed take time, and in these moments, there might be some changes that would be for your good; for example, it will make a positive change towards hiring more women in the workplace. Slowly but steadily, you will see you are able to solve the problems.

ways to inculcate self-discipline better

Verdict

Employees have become unhappy due to many reasons, and being someone who cares for their employees becomes a tough job for them.

They realize they need to address their employees ‘problems as well as the higher officials, and they seem to be in a dilemma, but what’s the most you can do is try to better the environment.

As said above, you will get a clear idea as to how you can deal with your unhappy employees.