Focus on Risk Enterprises, LLC - From Risk to Reward: Employees

From Risk to Reward: Employees

by Liz Meyers, CEO

Focus On Risk Enterprises

Enterprise Risk Management is becoming a part of today’s business lingo. There are hundreds if not thousands of articles and books available to give advice on how to identify, rate, mitigate and minimize business risk.

When listing potential risks, companies tend to list market competition; natural disasters, business continuity, and regulatory compliance; however, one key risk that is frequently overlooked is dysfunctional teams. Why are these teams a key risk? They impact your ability to succeed in achieving your department’s objectives, which ultimately impacts you and your company’s success.

What does a dysfunctional team look like? Well there are numerous characteristics including but not limited to members who:

· will not share information,

· show no ownership or accountability in what they do,

· are not respected by other teams,

· do not respect their supervisors or team members,

· are chronically late and / or leave early,

· perform the minimum of what is expected,

· or worst case scenario, look for ways to sabotage the company.

From Risk to Reward

In my many years of managing teams, I have inherited several dysfunctional teams and learned that trust is the key to turning things around. Although trust is a two way street, it is management that must make the first move to improve trust with their employees. The road to trust is not as difficult as one might think. Here are three small changes can change a dysfunctional team to a high performing one.

Create a Focus Group – Ask for focus group volunteers within the department. I recommend excluding supervisors from the group. The group will begin to share the team’s perceived issues, unfiltered by their bosses. Their concerns provide a roadmap as to how to improve the work environment. You are now addressing what they see as the issues, not what you believe them to be.

Hold Monthly Team Meetings – Don’t have meetings just for the sake of having a meeting. Use it as an opportunity to connect with your employees. Have guest speakers from other departments share with your team about what they do. Have activities during the meeting that allow team members to get to know each other and build connections. Discuss key issues being faced by the company and answer questions that your employees may have about these issues to ease their fears.

Communicate reasons for your decisions – Too often management takes the attitude of “because I said so” when handing down a decision to their staff. All this does is lead to the road of distrust and rumors within the department. Instead, provide the logic to your staff when you make a decision on recommendations or requests made to you by your staff. They may not like your decision but at least they understand why you made the decision.

By implementing these three changes, you will begin to see a change in your employees’ attitudes and willingness to work with you to improve the work environment. This can ultimately lead to a win-win situation for company and employees. Building trust will entice your employees to recommend changes for improvement. They will become more productive creating ultimate success and achieving success for everyone. Your greatest risk now becomes your greatest reward.

Have a question? Email Liz Meyers at liz@focusonrisknow.com

Responses will be posted on the website.