Dealing with dissatisfaction

Employee dissatisfaction, if not dealt with, transforms into angst that stifles motivation, inspiration and high performance levels, and breeds discontent and attrition amongst organisations, discovers Nandini Patwardhan

Employee dissatisfaction starts with a few murmurs, "Am I living in the Land of blah?" "Do promises mean nothing?" The talk soon leads to a change in behavioural patterns, resulting in probably a slowdown in work and employees saying "no" to extra work.

Executives and bosses, if you identify with the above scenarios, then you are in the danger zone, and it is time to find a necessary solution.

Employee angst not only propagates demotivation, but often goads an individual leave the company. And you can imagine the impact, when a top performer leaves. "I believe it is (employee angst) a very important factor as it is a natural tendency of every good employee/top performer to grow and prosper," says Tejinder Pal Singh, Partner and Head-Healthcare Practice India, Transearch India. "If opportunities do not exist for such an employee, he will move on for greener pastures to satisfy those needs," he adds. What is worse, it affects productivity and overall morale. Unhappy customers and a drought of passionate employees propagate politics at work and other integrity issues, making the overall situation difficult for both, the employee and the employer. Thus companies not only have to deal with high attrition, but also have to take measures to deal with the negative vibes around.

Attention pharma!

"While for some it maybe the money, for others it is job satisfaction. It has been rightly said that in most of the cases people leave managers and not companies" - Priya Brid Senior Manager, HR Metropolis Health Services

The issue of employee angst becomes all the more relevant to the pharma and healthcare industries (more so for the pharma sector) as these are knowledge- driven sectors. Also, pharma, like its IT counterpart, is in a growth phase. "In the initial high growth time of IT, in some sense, all of us went through the same issues that pharma is facing today. In IT, now people have learnt to deal with it," elucidates Prashant Sankaran, CEO, Blueshift Technologies, an IT firm, while trying to draw comparisons between the people issues faced by the two industries. "Pharma is probably going through that phase now, but there are enough lessons to learn from what IT went through or is going through," he adds.

Attrition too, has become the mainstay of the Indian pharma industry. There has been a constant movement of the intellectual capital across companies (to and from MNCs and domestic, large and small) and across departments. Hence, the investment done by pharmacos in training the employees—in terms of time, energy and money—cannot be recovered, if they are not able to retain them. And attrition, opine HR experts, is one of the direct outcomes of dissatisfaction.

Today with changing times the reasons for quitting differ from person to person. "While for some it maybe the money, for others it is job satisfaction. It has been rightly said that in most of the cases people leave managers and not companies," states Priya Brid, Senior Manager, HR, Metropolis Health Services. "Some other critical reasons identified for quitting maybe because the work environment is not conducive, there is too much work pressure, office politics, etc., and then there are other common reasons like lack of growth opportunities, interpersonal relations, infrastructure, salary and unprofessional attitude by seniors and co workers in the company," she adds.

Additionally, as good talent is scarce, getting a good replacement especially in a buoyant market like this is extremely difficult to find and this adds on to the costs. The company in such cases loses out on good employees. "Today, with several opportunities available in the market it is very important for companies to find the root cause of such problems and work on it constructively. There is a huge paucity of talent in the industry and virtually every sector is facing the brunt of it," opines Brid.

What breeds angst

There are many reasons for employee dissatisfaction turning into angst. Broken promises, miscommunication, lack of transparency in operations and absolutely no sync and understanding between the deliverables and rewards, can be some of the reasons for angst.

Sometimes in knowledge-intensive industries like the pharma, managers, with a view to retain a good employee end up making promises that might not be viable. When these are not fulfilled, they end up losing that employee's trust. They end up pushing him/her out of the company, when in fact they wanted to prevent just that. "At times, people do take a short-term view and say look let me buy some time and by giving him/her some promise. Sometimes line managers are not able to honour them," states Sankaran. "But if you want the employees to be happy in the long term, the HR department has to honour the promise made by anybody in the company and then put in enough controls and checks to see that people who are not authorised to make those promises. But once a promise is made, whether it is okay or not, we need to honour them," he adds.

Miscommunication between the superior, the sub-ordinate and the HR department can also lead to dissatisfaction, which, again, if not dealt with leads to angst. "Miscommunication never works if there in a long-term approach and for an organization that is serious about it's most important resource i.e. the people," expresses Singh. "This (miscommunication) raises serious questions related to integrity, ethics which can badly tarnish the image of the company," he adds.

When it comes to freezing in on the KRAs, deliverables and the growth path, then like the companies, every employee has a specific career graph in their mind, and they work assiduously towards it. "When things don't move according to their expectation it starts converting into dissatisfaction at work. If the employee has been repeatedly trying to bring this to the notice of the seniors and there has still been little action on the same their frustrations convert into angst," reveals Brid. Lack of vision, commitment, organization passion, systems and processes, empty promises, leadership that doesn't inspire confidence in the employee are important triggers of dissatisfaction and angst. No intellectual stimulation for the employee and too much of tactical behaviour without a long-term strategic intent also leads to this. While there is too much to lose, if companies do not deal with the problem of employee angst and control it, it takes very minuscule efforts on their part to deal with the same.

Finding a solution

There are several methods that companies can adapt to curtail the problem. Accessibility to the immediate superior and immediate action taken by them on the grievances is the most critical to weed out employee angst and its ill-effects.

"It is very important that at every level the employee should have the comfort to approach his/her immediate superior or the respective department head, who can help solve their grievances," pronounces Brid. "It is essential to give them a chance to talk about their concerns without anyone being biased towards them. Also management should adopt transparent ways of handling promotions, upgradation, keeping communication channel more aggressive and persistent," she adds.

It would also do well for companies to be clear and transparent with respect to employee expectations, as expectation is a mutually contributed thing. "So the company has to be very clear on what it promises to the employee and the employee has to be clear about how he/she sees that commitment or promises," says Sankaran. "It is actually the ownership of the manager and the HR team to be as realistic as possible with respect to the promises it makes to the employees," he adds. This is where the induction programme can make a difference. During the recruitment and induction stage, the manager and the HR department have to play a proactive role in spelling out to employees what they can expect. If he/she has enough clarifications, then the instances of expectations being unfulfilled will be much lesser.

Another idea that can be implemented is that of identifying good performers and then continuously keeping them challenged by understanding their aspirations and aligning them with the overall objectives and aspirations of the organization. Many organizations also assign mentors to such individuals to inspire them. Another way to keep them happy is by continuously engaging them in arduous tasks that tickle their intellect and keep them on their toes. Also by establishing appropriate reward and recognition systems in place as wealth (here income through perks) creation opportunities are always a big motivator and driver.

"If bosses and HR heads are truly convinced about the potential of the particular employee, I think they should do everything to facilitate and create an environment of joy and pride at work. Keep them challenged at work, give them opportunities to grow and prosper, invest in their training and development," expresses Tejinder Pal Singh. "Have policies and practices that foster innovation and creativity in ensuring that these gems can be accommodated and given an opportunity to perform. This would also result in both employee and job loyalty which is so rare to find in these days," he adds. Today, companies across all the knowledge intensive industries need to realise the fact that action speaks more than words-their actions and behaviour does have an impact on an employee, his attitude and his satisfaction levels in a company. Clarity and transparency will work like a glue to bind the employees and the company together. On the other hand, empty promises, lack of transparency and scant regard to their concerns, will make employees wonder if they are living in the land of blah and will give birth to the KILLER.

nandini.p@expressindia.com