Did You Spoil Your Employees Rotten?

If you make a pit stop in the management section of any bookstore, you probably realize that corporate culture is very important. Some of the best companies spend significant time, money and effort to create an awesome work environment. The same companies tend to have more rigorous hiring processes and background checks. In short, they’re able to higher top talent and retain them because of a great culture.

Unfortunately, not every company has the luxury of investing so much time and capital into the hiring process. For small business units and start ups, the best talent just might not be affordable at the moment. So, companies hire the best that they can. Then, they still try to create a good working environment. When a manager mixes medium performance employees with the wrong culture, the company could end up with a bunch of low performing spoiled employees.

How do managers make this mistake without realizing it? They are missing simple trait that their employees are lacking. Without this trait, most employees will end up taking advantage of their managers and eventually become low performers. Furthermore, the companies performance overall will suffer and morale will eventually drop.

If your employees are not appreciative, no matter how much in manager does for them, they will not be motivated to reciprocate the efforts. That is the main trait, appreciation. Those who are unappreciative will continue to take advantage of management and become lazier instead of more motivated.

It is extremely critical that managers take note of their employees appreciation. For example, you are flexible with them on leaving early on a Friday for their child’s baseball game. But, the following Monday, you are in a pinch and you need them to pick up the slack. How do they respond? Do they care about helping out? Were they thankful?

After a short or long series of events like this, managers can certainly determine who is appreciative or not so much. Once the determination is made, you can clearly see if your employees are actually spoiled rotten. Then, you will have to know what to do next.

Obviously, you want to keep, encourage and promote employees who are appreciative. They are usually the high performers because they are more likely to welcome and learn from opportunities. This is a very good culture to have at work.

For the unappreciative, you may have to do some intervention. Make it a point to show how you have been trying to support them so they can succeed and grow. Continue to coach and counsel them about meeting their goals and expectations. In the short term, you may actually have to pull off the favors and lenient rules. To maintain solid performance, they need to be held accountable. Otherwise, you are in risk of having a lazy, unproductive company culture.