5 Guaranteed Ways To Make Your Employees Lives A Misery

Are you looking to crush your employee’s morale? Are you looking to add to the number of sick days they take? In short, are you looking to make your employee’s lives a misery?

No, of course you’re not – what kind of person would you be? – but let us tell you this. If any of the following are true, then your employees are probably resenting you at this very moment.

Ask them to do jobs that are inappropriate for them

Your employees have a job to do, but how many of their tasks actually feature on their job description? If you are asking them to do jobs that take them away from what they should be doing, you are going to affect their productivity.

If you are giving them tasks that they aren’t skilled in, then you are going to damage their morale and put your reputation at risk if their work isn’t up to scratch. You need to let them do what they are supposed to be doing, or at the very least, invest in training and reshape their job descriptions.

Provide an unsafe and unclean environment

Are your employees working within a health and safety nightmare? If the technology they are working with is faulty, and if there are repairs needed in the building, then the answer is yes. You need to put procedures in place and bring in the professionals to fix any problems.

Then there’s cleanliness to think about. While your employees are responsible for cleaning up after themselves, you should still consider this commercial cleaning rates chart and hire the professionals, so your employees aren’t a) having to stay back after hours to clean a mess not of their making, and b) calling in sick because of all the germs and bacteria that are floating around the office.

Micromanage your team

Trust your team to get on with whatever they are supposed to be doing. Provided you have trained them up, they should be able to manage their daily duties without you sticking your nose into their business all day long. By constantly interfering, criticizing, and telling them how “you would do things better,” you are going to annoy them and damage their probable fragile self-esteem.

Berate them in front of others

If one of your employees screws up, the last thing you should do is berate them in front of their colleagues. This is humiliating and could lead them to become self-defensive and confrontational (if they haven’t already run out of the door crying). If you have anything to say to an individual on your team, speak to them in your office or another quiet area, being firm but fair within your approach to them.

Ask them to work overtime on a regular basis

The occasional bit of overtime is one thing (your employee might even request it) but on a regular basis? You are eating into their work-life balance. If your employee is falling behind within normal work hours, find out why, and help them to be more productive.

If you are asking them to stay behind to do jobs that aren’t part of their pay grade – the cleaning we mentioned earlier, jobs that belong to you – then stop, immediately, as you will tire them out and infuriate them.

And so…

Are you making your employees lives a misery? You are, if any of the above are true to you and your workplace. For their sake, and for the sake of your business, treat your employees fairly. If you are good to them, they will be good to you. The alternative is a mass walkout or low productivity because of your Scrooge-like behavior. Bah humbug indeed!