Minimising Workplace Negativity

There is nothing more detrimental to workplace morale than unrelenting workplace negativity. It drains the energy from a workplace and steals attention away from work.

As a manager it is important to stay closely in touch with employees throughout the company as this will allow you to sense any workplace negativity in its early stages.

It is essential to pay attention to employee complaints, exit interviews and employee discussions and feedback to pick up any signs of negativity. This information will help you learn to identify the symptoms of negativity before its consequences damage your work environment. It will also help you prevent future negativity and cure any current workplace negativity.

Negativity is a growing problem in the workplace, it is often the result of a loss of confidence, control, or community. Understanding what people are negative about is the first step in solving the problem.

Communicating with employees will help you define the exact problems and the extent to which these problems are influencing your workplace. One of the easiest ways to do this is to identify the particular employee groups who are experiencing the negativity and the source of the issues that triggered their unhappiness.

Perhaps the organisation has made a decision which has negatively affected staff or staff are feeling threatened or neglected by management.

Whatever the reason for the workplace negativity, these issues must be addressed.
Here are a few tips for keeping your workplace a negative free zone:

• Give staff opportunities to voice their opinions about workplace policies and procedures. Acknowledge the impact of changes in work hours, pay, benefits, overtime etc. on your employees.
• Treat employees like adults with fairness and consistency. Do not create rules for all your employees to target the few people who are doing the wrong thing. Keep the number of rules directing the behaviour of adults at work to a minimum.
• Keep your staff in the loop with what’s going on within the organisation. Provide the context for decisions and communicate regularly and effectively.
• Give employees opportunities to grow and develop. Training and opportunities for promotion are visible signs of an organisations commitment to staff.
• Make sure you give your employees appropriate reward or praise and recognition for a job well done.  Reward and recognition are some of the most powerful tools an organisation can use to boost staff morale.
• Listen, often people just need a sounding board. Be present and available to staff. 

How to Reduce "Emotional Labour"

The term “emotional labour “is used to describe the things that workers do in the service industry that goes beyond physical or mental duties. Workers in the service industry are often required to show genuine concern for customer’s needs, smiling and making a connection with customers. When these kinds of activities are essential to a workers performance it is known as “emotional labour”.

When you have to deal with aggravated or unpleasant people, emotional labour can become very challenging. A large part of the difficulty stems from needing to conceal your real emotions and continue to be pleasant when receiving negative or critical comments.

Staff in jobs that contain high levels of emotional labour tend to have higher levels of absenteeism, staff turnover and less engagement.

When an employee engages in emotional labour, they are essentially controlling their feelings to satisfy the goals and expectations of their organisation. This means these workers are:

• Only expressing positive feelings
• Hiding or managing their negative feelings
• Creating an appropriate emotion for the situation

There are two emotional labour techniques –

• Surface acting – Pretending to have an emotion by using unnatural and artificial body language and verbal communication. Smiling and using soft tones of voice can help you to display emotion that you don’t really feel or hide emotions that you do feel.
• Deep Acting –This is done by controlling your internal emotions and making yourself believe that you are actually happy and enjoying your interaction with the other person. Rather than pretending you convince yourself that you’re not having a negative reaction.

When you constantly need to display only the emotions that are fitting for the job, regardless of how you really feel, this can often lead to an emotional struggle between your real emotions and the ones you show to others. Some researchers believe that this leads to emotional exhaustion and a burnout for workers.

There are some strategies that organisations use to help their staff deal with the demands of emotional labour-

• Buffering – Some companies assign front end workers to manage the emotional demands of customers. This way by the time the customers reach back end workers they can focus on business.
• Teach ‘display’ rules. Staff are taught how to behave, and are sometimes even given scripts to use when dealing directly with clients. Therapists are taught to act neutrally, retail workers positively and bill collectors aggressively.
• Staff assistance programs – investing in facilities that provide access to stress management and emotional health services.
• Teaching problem solving techniques – Some companies help their staff to solve problems more effectively. This boosts workers confidence and reduces their negative reactions to angry or unpredictable situations.
• Improving emotional intelligence – The ability to recognise other people’s emotions is an effective way to reduce the burden of emotional labour.