Surviving Poor Management 5: No Respect for Employees

This continues our series to help all of you working under poorly managed companies

Angela worked for a company that emphasized recognizing the good things that employees do on the job. They practiced Ken Blanchard’s advice to catch your workers do something good. The praise and recognition inspired all the staff to work harder and perform even better. In addition to the praise, the company recognized employees with financial rewards for jobs well done. One year, the owner of the company divided $10,000,000 worth of the profits among all 560 of his employees. You can imagine the dedication and loyalty the verbal and financial praise generated in employees.

Importance of Praise and Recognition

Many authors exhort the benefits of praising and rewarding employees. Ken Blanchard highlighted it in The One Minute Manager. We also recommend The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. They appropriately sub-titled their book How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance.

The Carrot Principle encourages companies to recognize employees in the way that they will accept the recognition most. Some people do better with

• Public recognition: put their name on a plaque, acknowledge their effort in public meetings, or give them the employee of the month parking stall
• Private compliments in letters or cards and private conversations
• Tangible recognitions like medals, gift certificates, or crystal trophies

Consequences of Disrespect and Criticism

Continual criticism coupled with lack of praise

• Depresses employees
• Kills company morale
• Creates an environment of distrust, doubt, and hesitation
• Leads to long-term production decreases
• Leads to subterfuge, distrust, and disloyalty
• Drives the best employees to find new jobs

Compensating for Disrespect and Criticism

You will need to find support to compensate for a continual barrage of criticism and negativity. You may find the support through:

• Other employees who also seek praise and approval
• Friends and family who will give you positive feedback
• Colleagues at professional or trade associations
• Connections on LinkedIn (though do not share negative comments about management in social media)

Friday we highlight how to get recognition and plumb assignments from poor managers

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.