C'est la Vie: A Letter To My Company

To my current and future employers and bosses, I hope you learn to listen to the people you work with. You might want to read some of the most common reasons why your employees rant:    


Please urge us more to work harder
Learn to inspire and motivate your employees instead of looking down on them. You should not give up and view your unhappy staff negatively. Find ways to inspire us so we can work harder, keep positive conversation and expect the best, not the worst from us.


Can you at least pretend that you take interest in our career development?
We just don't work for the sake of getting a monthly paycheck. Don't you realize that if we work harder, we get to learn a new skill, which will eventually give us a career? When you create our career plan, do not focus only on those with high-potentials or talented pool of staff. Funny, but there are lots of ‘underachievers’ who need more guidance, so be fair in giving out stretch assignments.


Keep us in the loop
In case you do not know, communication plays such an integral role in good management and business relationships. Lately, it seems that you forget that employees appreciate good communication coming from management. Please remember the following below:

1. Always share information and keep everyone well-informed.
2. Ask good and sensible questions, and be open to opinions and views from everybody.
3. Most importantly, learn to listen to everybody and not just to the few people you like.

If you have changes or updates in any of your rules or metrics, please think about it a hundred times before launching it. Better yet, set a timeline and see if it will work or not. We are not your test dummies so expect and learn to listen to feedback directly from your own employees.


Be Honest
Let us know how well  we are doing our job. We also want to know how we are falling short. We want a chance to improve ourselves. We don't just sit here in our desk and do nothing. We get so disappointed when you are not giving us honest feedback and hiding over problems with comments like “You’re doing just fine,” when clearly we are not. Should there be any sanctions, please be the first person to let us know. It isnt great to hear it from our own colleagues! Honesty is the bedrock of good relationships.


Be sociable  
Do not show favoritism with people you like, which most of them are very incompetent. It's an insult, you know! If you cannot help it, then please learn to be discreet sometimes! Talk to us more socially. Get to know us more personally, even if you probably will not remember us for long. This is the natural way to gain friendship and trust. Your small effort to pay attention of people around you can go a long way.

Most importantly, please evaluate if there’s a need to increase our 5-year old basic pay. I believe that employees are also one the company’s assets, so please take time to review your records.

Before you settle for letting your not-so-happy people continue to go about their job unhappy, and burden the company with expensive unproductive workforce, do consider how you like to be treated by other people. It is not for any one-person sake, it is for everyone else's sake.

A good leader knows to inspire and motivate people, give opportunities for development, and treat everybody with the respect and dignity that each person deserves. After all, a third of your life and more, are spent in the office and workplace.


Sincerely,

Julie