In Today’s Issue: Unsung Hero of Saving Jobs Virtually anyone can do it. So it’s easily taken for granted. Even pooh-poohed by some in today’s gadgetized corporate world. But if your first level leaders communicate regularly with employees – as little as once or twice a week – about “big stuff” you’ll massively improve your employee relations environment. Most companies who measure engagement find that it doubles when they do a good job of this. Some companies have seen improvements of 8 times or more. Before we talk about the “big stuff” you should address with your employers, let’s take a closer look at this unsung hero of your workplace. Your first level leaders – they are the critical link between a positive and engaged workforce or a negative, disengaged workforce vulnerable to union organizing activity. Your first level leaders are top management’s only line of defense. How they handle this role is the difference in whether your company is vulnerable to a union organizing attempt or not. It is that simple. Union Organizers, don’t just announce that they’ve decided to target your company. In all but the most rare cases the organizer hopes that your first notice of a campaign is the fax machine humming in your office with the petition from the Labor Board. And we’ve started lots of cases where that was management’s first sign that anything was wrong. To the untrained eye, subtle early signs go undetected. Your leadership probably doesn’t know how to recognize early warning signals. When we train management teams in our 5-day “Boot Camp” training sessions we teach that you can’t just memorize “the list” that you picked up at the last labor law seminar you went to. Real union organizers – who we use to deliver our training – know that lists don’t matter because the signs could be different with your people – behavior matters. You know how you can tell your spouse or your kid is pissed at you without them saying a word? That is noticing behavior changes. Do your first level leaders recognize behavior changes among the people who work for them? Recognizing behavior change takes two important steps – paying attention to the “before” behavior (developed over regular and consistent interactions) and then looking for the “after” behavior. This is where “big stuff” conversations comes in. The only way to rapidly develop your “before” model is by having regular conversations about something other than the day-to-day work that is going on. There is very little depth to these “line of fire” conversations about how many parts were shipped or when a machine will be back on line. Instead “big stuff” conversations are about things like:
- How did you end up here?
- Where are you headed?
- What do you like about your job?
- What would you change about your job?
These conversations are not just highly motivating to employees, but they also quickly give you some “baseline” behavior about how open or closed an employee is and how positive or negative they are. By the way, this may sound like it’s a “union avoidance technique” or some psycho mumbo jumbo. It’s not. It is just simple leadership. Once you have established a rapport and a “baseline” with an employee you lead you now will have what you need to understand when behavior changes. And when behavior changes for any reason all you have to do is ask, “what’s up – you’re acting different than you usually do (name specifically what has changed) – is there something you want to talk about?” Most times that’s all you have to say. Again, this isn’t some union avoidance technique. For most leaders the answer to that last question will never in their whole career have anything to do with unions. But there will be something causing that change in behavior. The fact that you noticed – and asked about it – a lot of the time is all that really matters to that employee. If there is something bigger going on, you have a chance to be a resource early on, when you can actually help resolve the situation. And like I said, 99 times out of 100 that will have nothing to do with unions. It will usually be a problem with a coworker or maybe a problem at home. But whatever it is, you can help. And that’s leadership. What if it is a union organizing effort? We’ll talk about that next time. To your success, Phillip Wilson Next Time: Your Early Warning System
