When Your Employees Hate You!

By James Adonis

Don't you just love the employees that think you're the best manager they've ever had? But what about those that can't stand the sight of you? The ones that answer your questions with one word responses. The ones that rejoice when you call in sick. Their negativity ends up spreading like a virus and their performance hovers at a dangerous level.

Employees who don't like their manager become actively disengaged, and it is these employees that become destructive within an organisation. The solution? Build relationships with them. But that's easier said than done - especially when the feeling's mutual!

A Gallup study in 2004 examined the effect that relationships had on employee engagement. It found a direct correlation between high engagement and managers who built strong relationships with their employees. In the study of over 1000 people, 16% of engaged employees strongly agreed that they had one of the "strongest personal relationships in my life" with their manager, as opposed to only 4% of disengaged employees.

Relationship building is made easy, despite the circumstance you find yourself in, with my Behavioural Actions - Situational Environment (BASE) model.

The behavioural part of the BASE model outlines the specific actions to underake whereas the situational part of the model explains the environment that needs to be in place so that these actions can be effective. Implementing only the behavioural actions without the right situational environment is useless. It's like answering a telephone call at a rock concert. The action is right because the call needs to be answered but the environment is wrong since it's loud and crowded.

The actions that lie within the behavioural part of the BASE model are ask, listen, and help. Consciously applying these each day in your interactions with difficult employees will chip away at that frosty relationship.

ASK

Ask your employees questions to show that you have a genuine interest in their lives, their thoughts, and their future. To learn more about their lives outside of work, ask them about their partners, kids, hobbies, and previous jobs. To find out about their thoughts, ask for their feedback on your leadership style, their opinions on decisions you plan on making, and ask for their input on what can be changed within the business.

To discover more about their future intentions, ask them about their career goals and aspirations. Make it a habit to ask your difficult employees a few questions each day. Initially you'll notice hesitation in their responses and a lack of detail. You'll even feel awkward and uncomfortable. Don't let this stop you. Keep asking just two or three questions every day and after about a week, you'll begin to notice a softening in the icy relationship.

LISTEN

Listen carefully to the responses your employees give you to your questions. Summarise what they say, take action on their suggestions, and show that you genuinely listened by referring back to the conversation at a later date.

It was sportsman Tom Paciorek who said that "boredom is having to listen to someone talk about himself when I want to talk about me". And that's the challenge with difficult employees. Use verbal nods to show that you're listening, make mental notes of the important points and refer to them later on. After all, listening shows that you care.

HELP

Help your difficult employees as much as possible. If there's no immediate way you can offer assistance, find a way. Perhaps think of a comment they've made in passing about needing something and then see if you can somehow satisfy that need. Work hard to help them achieve their career goals, spend time coaching them so that they become better at their jobs, and be flexible with their working arrangements so that they've got a balance.

Let them know regularly that you're there to look after them and make them feel comfortable enough so that they can approach you whenever they're in need. Check up on them throughout the day to see how they're going. Do whatever it takes to support them because support and assistance build trust, and trust is the foundation of a solid relationship.

They're the three actions of the behavioural part of the BASE model: ask, listen, and help. Ask lots of questions so that you start to chip away at the awkwardness of the difficult relationship, listen intently and prove that you've listened to show that you care, and help as much as possible so that deposits are made into the trust bank. But remember, these actions will be useless unless they're conducted in the right situational environment.

The situational environment part of the BASE model outlines the environment that needs to be in place in order for the behavioural actions to work. The environment needs to be informal, personal, and respectful.

INFORMAL

Strong relationships aren't built across a boardroom table, in a cold meeting room, or over the phone. They're built in environments that are informal. There are strong similarities between a manager-employee relationship and a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Would you go out on a first date with someone to a wedding? No, because it's too official. The both of you wouldn't be relaxed.

So spend more time being casual with your employees than you would being formal. Spend more time chatting with them by their desks than in an office. Take them outside of the building for a coffee rather than always being indoors. Conduct team meetings without an agenda and have some fun with it. Avoid the need to be so serious and substitute this with a culture of humour, energy, and vibe. An informal environment is more conducive to the formation of a great relationship.

PERSONAL

Stop talking about work all the time. Get personal. You're not going to build a relationship with your difficult employees, or any employees for that matter, by just talking about quality, productivity, and performance. There's a time and a place to have these discussions but it's essential that you discuss non-work related topics as often as you discuss what's happening at work. Talk about what happened on the weekend, what's going on in each other's personal lives and anything else that's of interest outside of work.

The building of an awesome relationship involves getting personal, not only about your employees' lives but also about your own. It's the sharing of personal stories that helps to build a bridge between you and your employees. The more information you share about each other's lives, the more likely it is you'll find something you have in common. And when this happens, the formation of the relationship is instantly accelerated.

RESPECT

American comedian Rita Rudner once said, "Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be". As fabulous and empowering it is to be in a leadership position, we need to make sure that an environment of respect is upheld at all times. The moment an employee feels that there is a lack of respect in the workplace, immediate disengagement occurs.

Promote an environment of diversity where you allow for differing points of view. Discipline anyone who shows any hint of disrespect towards their peers, managers, or customers. It's a good thing when your employees are comfortable enough to disagree with a decision you've made. This shows that you've created an environment where you respect their thoughts as much as they respect your leadership style.

And that's the bedrock of the situational environment: informal, personal, and respect. Create an environment that's relaxed; dedicate a lot of time talking about subjects not related to work; and value the opinions and differences between you and your employees. Do this well and you'll enable the provision of the behavioural actions to play out beautifully.

The Gallup study concluded that it is essential for managers to develop close relationships with their employees in order to produce highly productive teams, and that doing otherwise can have significant and long-lasting negative consequences to an organisation.

The difference between an engaged employee and a disengaged one is enormous. The impact on operational performance and profits is sharp and well documented. If you have an employee who is actively disengaged, and a bad manager-employee relationship usually results in actively disengaged employees, then the damage being done to your team cannot be ignored.

It's time to build a relationship!

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