In the last post, we talked about the different steps organizations can take to keep their employees happy and satisfied. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the signs that tell you if your employees are unhappy with the workplace.
Absence, lack of punctuality, and procrastination
While unhappiness manifests itself in many ways, one of the biggest is the lack of punctuality shown by the employee and procrastination in fulfilling his or her duties. Also, you will see a higher prevalence of their absence from the workplace. Employees who are unhappy don’t care about arriving at the workplace on time or completing their tasks before their deadlines. Of course, even your star employees are late once in a while but unhappy employees make coming in time the exception, not the norm.
Avoidance and lack of contribution
Your unhappy employees are the ones least likely to contribute to your team or the organization and are least likely to be proactive. They are the ones who sit furthest away from you in meetings and barely speak up. They avoid all kinds of contact with you and just pass the day without any meaningful contributions. They are very happy talking behind you and around you than talking to you.
Not good ambassadors
Today, with the prevalence of social media and employer review websites, employees have become ambassadors of the organization like never before. Your unhappy employees are least likely to be your ambassadors and worse, spare no effort slighting you wherever they can. They also don’t refer any employees to the organization as their impression of the workplace is more important to them than the referral bonus or organizational growth.
Negative attitude
Unhappy employees display a very negative attitude towards everything related to the workplace. They don’t have anything good to say about anything and try to poison as many others as they can with their attitude. They are not social at the workplace and rarely participate in company events and outings.
Sure, you sometimes find these signs in perfectly happy employees but it is rare indeed that all of these manifest together if the employee is happy. The way to deal with unhappy employees is to let them vent out all their frustrations and causes for unhappiness.
Watch out for these signs and take corrective action today. Unhappy employees can be the organization’s biggest liabilities.
