Last time, I wrote about how managerial behaviour can sometimes cause ineffective methods of working and unrealistic expectations of "presentism" in staff.There are two sides to every workplace and many of you may have been wondering "Where HAS she been I am a manager or a colleague in an organisation where in recession staff are willing to do even
less!Where my colleagues are becoming stubborn, difficult, lazy (insert whatever negative adjective you want here) and some people are a pain in the proverbial. 

I know.

This is not the first recession I have seen. What feels different and what seems to change each time is the discontent experienced through staff attitude and the response of those who are not affected by redundancy. Those that are either left behind in organisations or are terrified that they will be expected to carry out more work because colleagues have left.So what actually happens is that staff can become less effective. Some of this is a a lack of motivation and some it is subtle (and sometimes not so subtle)sabotage.

So imagine you have someone who is less than motivated, they feel that they are likely to inherit more work,they're worried about their job, their partners job or the economic cost of life in general and no wonder they start- acting up. yes, just like small children do.Employees start sticking their heels in. This can manifest itself in lots of ways. In, not wanting to implement change,in actively creating problems by working slower, by spending more time on tasks they like rather than tasks that need to be done to deliver what the organisation needs. People start doing lots of doing to look busy when this may not be what makes the difference to the organisation being successful).

Disciplinaries increase generally during recession because organisations will start to increase their focus on effectiveness, mediation activity increases a bit as organisations seek to resolve complex issues between staff and management.Those actions and behaviours that were just about tolerable pre- recession become a noticeable problem .

But this isn't the whole story. they also increase because of the direct actions of individual staff. When someone feels threatened there is a tendency to get ready for an argument, to get defensive or get more anxious. In this process of "getting ready", people start to display unacceptable behaviours,start working less and not delivering and begin to articulate and identify any and every historical problem they have had with the organisation. ( It's a bit like a marriage on the brink of a potential divorce).

Grievance activity increases and people generally become disaffected.
Left unchecked, this can have a ripple effect amongst other staff creating either similar dissatisfaction or resulting in staff feeling that their colleagues are "getting away with it".

Managers can get a little slap happy with the disciplinaries, more experienced managers overturn their decisions on appeal as wrong decisions or poor process, either because the original manager hasn't listened to good HR advice or because the HR advice is poor.This makes for at least one or two other disaffected staff in the form of managers and HR people. Is anyone reading this blog post exhausted yet ? Either by the sheer ridiculousness of it all or by the various chains of disastrous and unfortunate events.

So what is to be done – ? It's quite easy really;

As managers, learn to say the things you find it hard to say and handle those difficult behaviours head on and EARLY ( no festering of tricky issues left un-tackled allowed) by giving good feedback and explaining why someone needs to contribute or behave differently.If you need to take management action- keep it focused and fair.

As staff,remember the reason you go to work is to satisfy a want. It is different for different people and for most it relates to enjoyment of money, job content, opportunities for development, identity with the organisation's cause, convenience in terms of location.Whatever the reason you want to work or choose to work where you do ( because YOU DO CHOOSE) remember it, and decide to make it as pleasurable an experience as possible .  Be happy where you work or.. be happy somewhere else.

Some people don't have a choice- most do. Many behave like they don't because frankly it's easier to be angry and disaffected than take responsibility sometimes, particularly in recession.

Wherever you are you choose your own behaviour and attitude- Your job- choose well.

marie x