Employees Feeling the Glass is Half Empty
ningcontentTrust and confidence key factors
What do employees around the world think about their organizations – their management, products, markets, and the odds of employment survival in these uncertain times? Valuable insights can sometimes be gained by looking at those who respond most negatively about their workplaces and environments. Looking at the negative responses, the Kenexa Research Institute (KRI) explored the results from a group of more than 16,000 workers, from 12 countries.
Employee confidence has two contributing factors as defined by Kenexa researchers: organizational and personal confidence. Organizational confidence is defined as employees having confidence in their organization’s future, believing their organizations are managed effectively, feeling that the products/services are of high quality and sought after, that the organization is competitive and that the industry in which the organization is operating is robust and healthy.
Personal confidence is defined as employees feeling there is a promising future for them at their organization, that they won’t be laid off, feeling the organization is helping them develop the skills they need in the future, believing other organizations are hiring people with similar skills and experience, and feeling that if they left their current employer they could find a similar job utilizing their skills and paying at least similarly to their current position.
A significant number of employees feel that the future at their current employer is rather bleak for them personally (19%). In addition, these employees feel that their current employer is not helping them develop the skills they will need in the future (19%) and if they were to leave their current employer, their next job would not pay them at least similarly to what they currently earn (17%).
Jeffrey Saltzman, east coast practice leader for Kenexa, says, “When you examine the employee confidence results through the lens of those who view the glass as half empty, an interesting story unfolds. A near perfect storm arises when you have employees who feel they are in a dead-end job, yet trapped due to an inability to keep current with necessary skills, compounded with the belief that they would take a financial hit should they switch jobs. It is no wonder, as these employees look around wondering how they got into their predicament, that the most negatively scored item on the study was the effectiveness of management (20%).”
“People with these feelings will be underutilized assets,” Saltzman contends. “An organization will be better positioned if they invested in skill development, which would bring some relief to these employees. Unhappy employees with highly developed skills can be attractive to the competition.”
Organizations fail to create trust
Not only is investing in employees’ skill development essential to creating a positive workforce, most organizations recognize that trust is also an important consideration. However, many employees do not feel it is being nurtured internally. The main culprit? Top management, according to a recent study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp).
According to the survey of hundreds of companies, one out of every five respondents does not feel his or her organization engenders trust. Another 40% think trust is nurtured only to a moderate extent. When segmented between low- and high-performing companies, the difference is starker. A full 40% of low-performing companies feel their organizations do not nurture trust, while only 16% of respondents from high-performing companies feel the same.
In line with trust issues, management’s credibility is understandably also taking a hit. According to the study findings, almost a quarter of the responding organizations said their senior management team’s credibility is lower than it was two years ago. That number rises to almost 30% in companies with more than 10,000 employees.
A big part of management’s falling credibility is the failure of senior leaders to deal with low-performing individuals or teams, with 56% of companies polled citing it as their top concern when it comes to building trust. Forty-six percent pointed to management’s iffy track record regarding trust issues, and 45% said there’s a feeling of “individual powerlessness” to effect change in their companies.
Despite the issues, there are very few formal programs inside of organizations today to restore trust. A full 87% of respondents say their organizations do not offer training programs that address this issue, 69% don’t utilize an ombudsman program to deal with concerns or complaints, and more than 60% report that employee surveys or audits on trust issues aren’t in place, or are in place to only a small extent.
However, the lack of formal programs might not be a big issue. When asked what ideas or initiatives they would recommend for improving trust in their organizations, most respondents said that better communication practices, both informal and formal, need to be implemented across all levels of the organization. Many also specifically cited the need for better top-down communication from upper-level management and management’s need to “walk the talk” on trust issues.
Article courtesy of Kennedy Information Recruiting Trends providing leading edge insights and strategies for the recruiting professional
