Running a workplace that will allow your employees to unleash their full potential is not a simple task. Adjusting to the workplace as a new employee or someone who still doesn’t fit in this environment is also incredibly difficult. In order to make all of this come together, it’s vital that both sides work in unison. In other words, you need to take a look at major workplace challenges from both perspectives. Here are five examples!
1. Being new to the workplace
The first major challenge comes from being new to the workplace. First of all, fitting in is always hard, and recruiters don’t always do the right job of displaying corporate culture when choosing employees. Knowing who’s who in the office is another difficulty, seeing as how a rank within the firm doesn’t necessarily relate to the influence that one has. The biggest problem, however, comes from one’s lack of confidence. This makes them anxious that they’ll make mistakes and scared when they have to speak up.
Tip: Remember that you’re coming to an already established work place environment. Therefore, it’s your job to adjust to them and not the other way around.
2. Disagreement with coworkers
Disagreeing with a coworker is completely benign 9/10 times. However, sometimes it results in more serious disputes. Keep in mind that being argumentative often leads nowhere. When you confront people, their natural instinct is to raise their defense mechanisms, seeing as how they’ll feel like being personally under attack. The stronger you push, the stronger the resistance you’ll encounter. In that case, looking for mediation or arbitration from a superior is the best choice.
Tip: Not every argument should be your hill-to-die-on. Sometimes, preserving good relationships is worth more than being in the right.
3. Lack of proper leadership
Bringing in leaders from outside is not necessarily an efficient solution. First of all, the adjustment time alone will take a tremendous amount of time. Second, proven leaders won’t come cheap, and they always have other options. This gives them the type of leverage that the management would rather if they didn’t have to deal with it. Instead, it might be better to groom people for positions of leadership and help them grow professionally through methods like executive coaching.
Tip: Recognizing potential leaders should be done early in the process. During the recruitment or the early training stage, you should look for leadership traits.
4. Hiring the wrong people
There are some people with the ability to bring productivity down even without being under-achievers themselves. For instance, an emotional vampire doesn’t have to miss their personal deadlines and their work is not necessarily of suboptimal quality. A backstabber is usually amongst the highly motivated overachievers in your firm. However, the effect of individual employees on others in your organization is just as important. So, it’s important that you avoid hiring the wrong people.
Tip: Personality and cultural fit are just as important as one’s resume. Try to imagine what actually working with these people will be like, instead of just envisioning their evaluation reports.
5. Favoritism and advancement concerns
Accusations of favoritism are some of the greatest challenges of every work environment. Even if you try to be as unbiased as possible, the truth is that we subconsciously like some people more than others. In order to avoid allowing this to affect evaluation reports and potential promotion criteria, it’s important that you set some objective metrics. Determining KPIs early on is key to making this work.
Tip: While fraternizing with employees may seem like a sensible thing, it often leads to accusations of favoritism (and actual favoritism) in the workplace. Therefore, it might be for the best to avoid it outright.
Avoiding these workplace challenges with a 100% success rate is completely impossible. Still, with the right plan, the effectiveness of your efforts can be quite impressive. Remember that in order to make a welcoming and pleasant work environment, you need to try seeing it from both perspectives (employee and employer).
